Frozen - IceHeart
by LeGrande Grover
Summary: The conclusion of The Snow Queen and the FireHeart. With her wedding on the horizon, a tormented Elsa chases a shadow into the depths of the castle and discovers a magic mirror. The mirror reveals the voice of Lind and promises that if she comes to the frozen kingdom of Lapland, Elsa will learn everything about the origins of her ancient magic.
1. Shadows And Mirrors

**I**

Shadows and Mirrors

In the blossoming days of a new summer in Arendelle, the starry night sky had fallen away to a new dawn. The previous year had been full of storms and the kingdom was looking forward to not only the warmth of summer, but the looming celebrations that were just around the corner. Where one royal wedding had come and gone, seeing Princess Anna joined together with Kristoff, another was just beyond the horizon, marking the day that Queen Elsa would finally crown her king, though the apparent merriment on the faces of the citizens appeared as masks in light of the whispers being shunted throughout the castle, whispers of things that threatened to push that anticipated day of joy into oblivion, or tear it from the future all together.

Standing before his queen, Captain Johann had been dutifully reading the daily reports from a stack of papers in his hand, ironically filling in the position he had once held as baron of the Royal Guard, though now his presence before her wasn't due to the machinations of his father, the former regent, or any of his own desires. He was standing in as head of the Royal Guard due to a far cooler reason, and it showed by the apparent melancholy he had for the task.

"The Kingdom of Overlake has responded to the wedding invitations and would like to send a delegation of fifty guests, of which I recommend politely responding that they limit their delegation to the direct royal family. We can't very well pack the chapel with so many people that they're spilling out of the windows and into the fjord," he remarked, shuffling through his papers, which was dominated by the responses of other kingdoms to the wedding of Queen Elsa and Prince Yasha, something that had once burned bitterly in the depths of his chest, though now was nothing more than a duty to be handled.

Elsa wasn't paying attention. Her chin slumped into her palm, she had been staring past him with eyes lost in another world, for she hadn't been able to concentrate on anything for several weeks now, even when it was her duties to her kingdom or the details of her upcoming wedding.

Johann wasn't lost on her mood and looked to her in concern, wondering if she had heard anything he said at all.

"Queen Elsa?"

"Hmm? I'm sorry, Johann. What were you saying?" she sighed, rubbing her eyes as she straightened her back, if only to try and break the posture that had frozen her so stiffly to the throne.

He let out a worried sigh and let the papers fall to his side. He had rarely seen her so moody, which was a grand statement considering their past and how many of her foulest moods had been because of him. The reason for her mood was well-known, even outside of the castle, and he didn't blame her for a moment for the way it consumed her.

It was the same reason why he was standing before her in his previous capacity, in lieu of the true baron.

"It's nothing that can't wait for another time, Your Highness," he replied, shaking his head and hoping she would use the opportunity to go and rest.

Elsa nodded mindlessly, though not because she acknowledged his words, but because everything he was saying seemed to blur together and become lost in the cold air that pierced the warm summer breeze. The days were running together and being lost to the rhythm of her aching heart, and she could barely recall what day it was, though she could vividly remember how many days had passed since she had been stricken by sadness.

Ultimately, there was really only one thing she wanted to hear from him and her eyes lifted, glimmering in some small hope that he would have some kind of news for her.

"Have you found anything at all?"

Sighing again, Johann shook his head, showing that strangely enough this was something that was affecting him as well. "I'm afraid not. No one has seen Yasha for several weeks, and our scouts found nothing even outside of the kingdom. The expedition to Fria also turned up nothing," he reported, his brow crushed by the frustrations of losing the head of the Royal Guard.

"What could have happened to him?" she whispered, knitting her hands across her lips as she leaned forward, once more falling into deep thought as to why he suddenly disappeared from her life. They had been absolutely content, the happiest they had ever been as they planned for their wedding. There were no more battles to be fought and no more villains to vanquish. They could just be together, yet they weren't. The constant flow of responses to wedding invitations only made his continuing absence that much harder to bear and her chest felt like it was constantly being thrashed by a thousand ruthless crystals of ice and glass.

Johann was watching her with concern. "I promise you that I won't stop looking until I find him, Your Majesty," he vowed.

Elsa smiled slightly. "Thank you, Johann," she replied, amazed at how far he had come from the wicked, scheming princeling that had done all he could to try and pry Elsa and Yasha apart. Since the moment the regent had been unmasked, his son had dedicated himself to his duties to the kingdom and the queen, even swallowing the defeat to his rival Yasha and endorsing the betrothal of the two, bringing in line any of the lingering nobles that still murmured against such a union. The young man was now the strongest voice for Yasha's ascension to king, even though she could still see how bitter it was to lose the one he had loved since childhood.

She found his strength in that remarkable.

Disturbing their meeting, the doors to the throne room suddenly popped open and in walked Anna, walking gingerly across the empty floor with her eyes firmly planted on the two. She had expected to see her sister quietly mulling with dark clouds above her, so finding her talking was a welcome sight, though a playful smirk was dancing across her lips as she focused her attention onto Johann, as if his mere presence had completely made her day.

"Oh ho, what's this? In here making a move on the queen again, Johann? What a sneaky little captain you are," she said, giving in to the persistent joys she had in teasing him.

He returned her smirk as he turned, giving her a curt bow and parrying her as deftly as he always did. "Those days are behind me, Princess Anna, and I'm a better man for it," he replied, watching with quiet amusement as she was already trying to figure out how to continue their fencing match, though after giving a short glance to the expression on Elsa's face, he realized that his place wasn't in between the royal sisters, but out fulfilling his duties, which included finding the absent baron of Guard.

"In truth, I was just leaving. I have many other duties to attend to."

"Queen Elsa. Princess."

After offering them both a respectful bow, he turned and marched out of the throne room, gesturing to the guards to close the doors behind him and give the sisters their privacy. Anna watched him leave, amazed that he was such a different man, and her attention turned back to Elsa as she threw her thumb over her shoulder.

"That one's come around, hasn't he?" she remarked.

Elsa nodded. "He has. It's hard to believe he's the same man as before," she agreed, though signaled with a frown that she wasn't really interested in talking about Johann and that her heavy mood lingered even in the presence of her beloved sister.

Anna picked up on her mood immediately and mirrored her frown.

"Still no word, huh?" she asked sadly.

"No. Nothing," Elsa sighed, frustrated as she stepped down from her throne and walked to the side, looking outside the large windows, as if she would somehow find him standing there. Suffering the currents of her heart, she clenched her hands at her waist, consumed by the pain that his absence caused. Quietly, she was twisting the glowing ring on her finger and still marveling at how it was cold against her skin, the magically-forged metal a chilling reminder of how extraordinary her connection with him was. "I don't know how to plan for a wedding when the groom has suddenly disappeared. I have no idea what to do, Anna."

It was no secret that Anna adored Yasha. The frequency that she met him bred rumors, though they had never become nothing more than amusement between them, for they knew their attachment was not romantic love, but a powerful friendship, even if she still had a hard time convincing Kristoff of that.

In truth, her heart was just as broken by his disappearance as Elsa's, even if she hid it better.

Pursing her lips, Anna stepped up to her side and slipped her arms around her, hugging her tightly and laying her head onto her shoulder. The warmth of her sister instantly melted away the tensions and Elsa buckled against her, leaning her head in and closing her eyes. Her body shook a few times as she vented, with her sister carefully stroking her and trying to cheer her up as only she could.

"You know, he's probably off sulking somewhere because he feels like making you marry him is an inconvenience or something like that. If you haven't noticed, he's kind of a drama queen, er...prince...uhm, baron. Wait, what is he again?" she said, feeling Elsa's body shudder in a bleak laugh but finding that it made her feel better as well.

Being comforted made Elsa's heart calm down and she looked to the floor, her smile fragile and her eyes looking for the answers that had so far eluded her.

"Do you think he's all right?" she asked quietly.

Anna dismissed her concerns with a burst of air rippling her lips. "Are you kidding? He's a drama queen, but he's also the most stubborn man I've ever met. I don't think anyone could make him do anything he didn't want to, and after everything we've been through, I'm actually starting to wonder if he's immortal or something," she replied, though seeing as it still didn't wash the concerns from her, she decided to dismiss the jokes and tell her sister exactly what she knew in her heart, as she affectionately reached up and wiped a tear from her cheek.

"Don't worry. He'll come back. I know it."

The feeling of her hand on her cheek made Elsa give in to the consolation, nodding as she could do nothing more than accept her sister's word. In truth, she also believed in him, even if she could barely stand a moment without him. Whatever his reason for leaving her, she believed he would return.

Believing was the only thing her heart could do.

Feeling tired from the constant worrying and eager to move on from the painful subject, Elsa shook off her mood and slipped her hands into her sister's, facing her fully and giving her every part of her attention. If she were to spend every waking moment in despair, she would miss the other important things in her life, especially the one that was right before her eyes.

"Well, enough about that. How are you feeling? How's the little one?" she asked, her eyes falling down to the slight bump at Anna's stomach and her lips spreading in a genuine smile.

Anna's face stretched as she sighed dramatically, rolling her head along her neck. "Ugh, don't ask. The doctor told me everything's fine. The nursemaid told me everything's fine. Nobody told me about the backaches and the heat waves, and don't even get me started about the cravings!" she groaned, showing her thrashing mood as her sister looked on. "Do you know what I ate last night? Pickles and ice cream. I don't even like pickles, though if you happen to stick them in a creamy bowl of ice cream, they're increeeedible."

Elsa laughed, finding that while not many things could really get to Anna, this one certainly shook her up. "I guess that comes with being pregnant. You should've thought of that before you married Kristoff."

"Oh, you don't want to talk to me about Kristoff. Kristoff is the whole reason I can't sleep at night. Kristoff is the cause of everything! _Sleep on your back, Anna. Sleep on your side, Anna. Put this pillow under your legs, Anna. _If that man gives me any more advice about how to sleep, he's going to be out sleeping in the stables with the reindeer!" she threatened.

"I thought he liked sleeping with the reindeer," Elsa remarked.

"He does! But that's not the point," Anna groaned, feeling heated at the conversation and happy to have someone to vent at, "Do you know what he did when he found out I was pregnant? He read a book." For a moment, she waited for that to have some kind of effect on Elsa, though her sister seemed lost on the significance. "Kristoff doesn't read books! You know, unless it's about ice or something. So he reads this book all about how to _help_ your pregnant wife deal with this thing growing inside of her..."

"That sounds sweet," Elsa replied with a smile.

"It sounds idiotic!" Anna shot back, not giving him the same benefit and clawing her fingers, as if she were strangling him. "Everything in that book is wrong! It said to massage my feet to help with swollen ankles, but he's so clumsy with his fingers that I almost kicked him off the end of the bed. He knows my feet are ticklish!"

Elsa couldn't help but feel sorry for Kristoff, even as she was trying to sympathize with her pregnant sister. Just imagining him stumbling through her tantrums made her laugh carefully once more, wondering if she should spend more time with her just to give him a break.

"Poor Kristoff," she said, letting her thoughts slip.

"Poor Kristoff? How about poor Anna? I'm the one eating everything in sight and getting fat and suddenly crying at the dumbest little thing that just happens to pop up in front of me," she heaved, though Elsa still seemed too amused at her complaints. "Oh, just you wait. When it's you that's raiding the pantry and trying to figure out how to get comfortable in bed, I'm going to stand here just like you are and only worry about how Yasha is…"

Anna's words fell away. The return back to the delicate subject made Elsa's expression weaken and she instantly knew she had moved in the wrong direction, for she faded away in her thoughts and anger, reminding herself that there was no place to sit and joke about how Elsa would feel when she became pregnant when the man she was set to marry wasn't around to perform the necessary acts.

"Oh Elsa, I'm sorry," she said, feeling her temper retract and her heart shift gears.

Elsa sighed, but then shook her head. "No, it's fine. We need to start thinking of what will happen when he does come back, even if I'm not so excited to enjoy the same wonders of being pregnant like my poor little sister," she replied.

Her apparent management of her sadness made Anna relax. On some level, she was surprised with how well she had been handling it, for when she tried to imagine Kristoff suddenly disappearing from her life, she felt she wouldn't have the same level thinking as her sister was suddenly showing, and just the thought of it made her decide to let up a little on him. At the same time, she was also planning on what she would do when Yasha finally made his way back home. She imagined it would involve a lot of yelling and possibly making good on all of the various threats she had made at him since they met, as payback for how much he was making them worry.

Then, she would make him spend the next year or two apologizing to them both.

Elsa, hiding her hurting heart and showing the playfulness she had before, suddenly turned and locked her arm into Anna's, an impish expression working over her face as she decided it was far more important to take care of her at the moment, even if it was in a whimsical sort of way.

"Now, why don't we go see if we can find you some pickles down in the kitchen, and you can tell me more about just how much fun it is to be pregnant."

* * *

Later in the evening, when most of the castle had gone to bed, there was a pale glow burning through an open door in the castle, its lonely light projecting in angular lines across the empty hallway, signaling that someone had entered Yasha's room.

Elsa stood by herself, her arms tucked into her body as she stared into the vacant room. She had been standing there for longer than she remembered and a despondent sigh slipped through her lips as she rested her head against the door, her mind trying to unravel the mystery of her missing fiancée. Her fingers were playing over her ring again, wondering if she would ever get the chance to finally marry him.

With a bittersweet smile and her eyes wandering over the room, she thought on how it still didn't have much that reflected on him, though compared to those first days in the castle, he now had a much larger imprint on the room. There were decorations from the artisans of Fria, a reminder of his homeland, but there were also signs of Arendelle, mainly gifts given to him from the people whose lives he had touched, bringing balance to the once monochromatic room. In a vase on the desk, there were wilting stalks of foxglove, a flower that he claimed reminded him of her. Next to the vase was the seal of the baron of the Royal Guard, left standing erect in its case, yet untouched next to a growing pile of documents that required its attention. The fireplace at the center of the room was cold and unused. The bed had not been bothered in weeks.

The room cried loneliness to her, and her heart resonated loudly.

Perhaps the most telling thing about the room wasn't what was left there, but what was missing. No matter how many times she had looked, she couldn't find the black-bladed dagger named Xenocryst, meaning that when he disappeared, he had been armed. It was a relic of his past and the focal point of his violent heart, the part of him that frightened her and made her wince every time she saw it. Since becoming baron, he rarely carried it with him, so its absence was the biggest reason why she worried for him and his fate.

"Where are you?" she asked the empty room, running her hands up and down her arms, as if she were trying to warm herself as proxy to his embrace. In spite of the brave face she showed, her every thought had been cast by the void he left in her heart, and while she had been honest in her belief he would somehow return to her, she felt like there was something she should be doing, or somewhere she should be going.

Desperately, she wanted to know what she had to do in order to bring him back home.

As she stood there, struggling to feel the lost heat in his empty room, the flame in her lantern suddenly flickered, sending a wave of dancing shadows throughout the room and catching her attention. It wasn't as much the flicker of light that captured her, but rather a strange, familiar feeling that crept up into her chest.

Straightening, she suddenly felt a presence in the hallway and picked up the lantern, then took a quick step into the dark corridor to try and figure out if anyone else was there. Squinting and hearing her heart beat faster, she thought she saw a shadow at the far end of the hallway, lingering just at the edge of the lamplight. Its blurry form made her gasp slightly, though she found that she couldn't simply dismiss it as her eyes, or her heart, playing tricks on her.

"Hello? Is someone there?" she called, though the cavernous hallway was quiet in response and the shadow seemed to fade away from her sight.

Her first reaction was to doubt her eyes, for she was tired and torn by emotion, but there was something alluring about shadows in the night and she slowly began walking down the dark hall, unsure there had been anything there at all.

The corridors felt uncommonly still as she moved forward, pausing every once and awhile to look behind her but finding the path behind her just as quiet, as if the shadows that surrounded her were at once both her origin and destination. No matter how she moved the lantern or how quickly she walked forward, she couldn't see the shadow for anything more than a moment, and it seemed to lead her away from the heart of the castle, down several flights of ancient stairs and winding quietly through the dark. Her mind was trying to convince her heart of the silliness chasing a shadow through the castle, though as she finally came to yet another long hallway, her feet came to a stuttering halt and her eyes widened.

At the other end of the hallway, there was no shadow, but a figure lingering before a large portrait of the king and queen, Elsa's parents, as if it blended in with the scraping strokes of ancient paint. Her heart was in her throat as she lifted the lantern and tried to focus on the figure, finding that its black outline almost faded like mist into the darkness, making her unsure where it began and ended. Her first reaction was to call for the guards, for this shadow was obviously real, yet didn't seem to belong there, though a strange beating of her heart made her hesitate, instead taking a few steps forward, her red lips quivering in the dark.

Possessed by her heart and feeling strangled by her thoughts, her eyes began to play tricks on her and her voice suddenly summoned the name of the one she longed to see, despite the impossibility of it being true.

"Yasha?"

While no reasonable expectation would have allowed her to simply conjure him before her, she wanted nothing more than this shadow to be her betrothed, wondering if magic could grant such wishes. The shadow stirred at the name, then slowly turned to her in the dark, revealing its ashen face and making her gasp loudly as the lantern dropped from her hand and clattered to the floor at her feet.

Staring back at her from under a thick hood was a mask, but it instantly registered in her memory. It was a mask of the guards of Fria, with its metal maw fanged sharply down around a grated mouthpiece and two dark eyes staring back at her. She still saw them around the market, though they were little more than trinkets now, yet where this mask most brightly burned in her memory was in the dented one she had picked up from the cavern floor of Yasha's grotto, on that day long ago when she had first met him.

It was the mask Yasha had worn when he kidnapped Anna from the castle, and set their entire future into motion.

While she was speechless and frozen in place, the masked man stared back, not answering. A tranquil moment lingered between them and she truly thought she was dreaming now, but the dream suddenly cracked as he slowly turned and continued heading away from her, denying her the response she desired to hear.

"Yasha, wait!" Elsa cried, rushing forward into the darkness and leaving the lantern glowing brightly behind her.

She passed the portrait of her parents and entering yet another hallway, where she saw the figure continuing on and disappearing down another darkened flight of stairs. Scrambling frantically in the dark, she stumbled against stone walls and tripped down uneven stairs, but her eyes never moved from the shadow that stalked before her and her feet never stopped in their pursuit. The shadow's movements defied logic, for as slow as it was moving, her hurried pace should have allowed her to capture it, yet every corner she turned found the figure far beyond her reach, as if she were fated to never catch up. Her heart was racing and her breath hissed loudly in her ears, making the world seem like a cold, dark blur as she stumbled down into the deepest parts of the castle.

After a desperate chase that left her panting and pushing through a slightly parted door, she suddenly cried out as she bumped against a ghostly form before her, her fingers clawed out and her heart roaring loudly. It took a moment to calm down, but she quickly handled the rigid object, her fingers splayed out into the darkness. It felt like an old table, though a dusty white sheet had been draped over it to try and help it endure its storage. The room she had entered was filled with unused furniture and forgotten ghosts, making her look around fearfully, but still searching out the shadow that had so far eluded her. Without her lantern, she could barely make out anything, with only ambient moonlight sneaking in from thinly-slotted windows near the ceiling. There didn't seem to be any other ways out of the large room, though she couldn't tell what lingered at the other side, as it was cavernous and frightening, and she struggled to keep moving forward.

That was until she saw the shadow standing just beyond the periphery of darkness, motionless and real, as it if beckoned her to continue.

"Yasha! Please wait!" she cried, sliding past the table and immediately bumping into another ghost, making her spill onto a covered couch.

Her temper flared as she felt like the ghosts were impeding her reunion with her fiancee. She rose to her feet, then began to weave her way through the sheets, her eyes locked on the shadow, while her breath filled the silence and she coughed in the musty air. "Why won't you answer me, Yasha?" she said, encouraged that he was no longer running, but chilled at why he wouldn't respond. A part of her feared that this was all just a dream and that she was truly chasing shadows, but the way the terrifying mask stared back at her dispelled common sense and she could think of nothing more than pulling it away to find her handsome prince smiling back at her, reaching out to her and telling her that everything would be all right.

Just as her heart was warming and she was coming into reach of the masked man, she suddenly felt her body wrench her back, something that made her cry out and look backwards fearfully. Instead of some monster clutching her, she found that the cape of her dress had gotten caught between two pieces of furniture, preventing her from going any further. Pulling on it, she suddenly looked back to the figure, hoping he hadn't slipped away from her. The masked shadow remained and she let out a sigh of relief, though she continued to try and pry her dress loose, frantic that he was so close, yet just beyond reach.

"Why won't you say anything? Is something wrong?" she panted, suddenly tiring from the chase as she let her grip loosen on her dress and feeling that as long as he was there, she didn't have to worry anymore. "I was so worried when you disappeared. We've been looking for you everywhere." The silence of the shadow didn't warn her and she continued to embrace relief at his apparent return, oblivious to the darkness around her.

"I've missed you so much," she called and smiled at the the figure with hazy eyes, hopeful for his warm response.

Suddenly, the masked figure began to step back and fade into the darkness once more, making a flight of panic rise up in her as she reached her hand out to stop him. "Wait! Where are you going? Don't go!" she cried, her outreaching hand seeming like it could simply close around him.

With her dress still caught, she began wildly pulling on it again, trying as hard as she could to reach him before he faded away, until the cape finally tore and released her, sending her stumbling forward into the dark until her hands crashed into something. Slowly opening her eyes and feeling something cold and hard, she found there was a face before her, but not the one she had expected.

Instead of Yasha, she found that it was her own face that stared back, her eyes wide in shock and her mouth hanging open. Her hands were pressed against the stone wall at the other end of the room and framing an ancient, ornate mirror, while the shadow was nowhere to be seen.

Finding the mirror staring back made her pant a few strangled breaths, her eyes searching her own face for answers, then slowly lean her head forward, letting a choking sob well up in her throat, her foreheads touching. The entire chase suddenly seemed like a prank played upon her by a lonely heart and she began wondering if the shadow had existed at all.

Bitterly, she hated her heart for offering such false hope.

"_Elsa_."

The sound of her name made her head snap up, staring at her own reflection with her breath trapped in her seized throat. The voice was distant, but frighteningly familiar. She immediately suffered the same sin as she projected her desires into reality and searched the reflection for any sign of the shadow.

"Yasha?" she asked, her own voice echoing into the empty room.

"_Elsa._"

This time, the voice was clearer, feeling closer and even more familiar. As her eyes searched, a subtle turquoise glow began to churn within them, filling the darkness with a glow that seemed to cover the frame with ancient markings, though so dimly that she didn't see them at first. She also couldn't fool herself into believing this was Yasha's voice, for it was a woman, and it stung painful in her memory.

"Who are you? Where are you?" she asked, her eyes searching around.

As if answering her, the depths of the mirror erupted with light and instantly snared her, for there was nothing else in the room but the ghosts that haunted the darkness. There were swirls of light and dark in those fathomless depths, as if an entirely different world existed between reality and reflection, and Elsa was astonished at their beauty, though the fearful mood of the dark room still composed her and she felt an overwhelming urge to step back from the mirror.

Despite that, she remained chained to it.

"_You've finally come_," the voice called, chilling her for its spectral tones and its elusive origins. "_It's time for all of your questions to find answers. It's time for you to come home._"

The voice was now lucid and Elsa could no longer escape the realization that seized her, for she suddenly remembered the last time she had heard it and why it struck such a desperate chord within her. Memories of the monstrous form of King Nazir flickered through her mind, his lava-stoked rampage destroying the kingdom of Fria and threatening to devour all that escaped it, while the voice that she now heard had been speaking through her own lips. It was a voice that thanked the lifeless Yasha for destroying the FireHeart, then turned on the monstrous Nazir to encase him in an eternal tomb of ice and snow, after bidding him a bittersweet farewell.

The memories burned within Elsa as if it had only happened yesterday and she suddenly felt the significance of seeing them once again.

"Lind?" she gasped.

The voice seemed pleased. "_Come to me, my child, and I'll reveal everything to you about the ancient magic. You'll find me to the north, in the frozen kingdom of Lapland. Come to me, and I'll give you everything you've ever wanted_," it said, then began to fade away as the swirls in the mirror followed suite, slowly slipping from view as the mirror became black and dull.

"_Come to me,_ _Elsa._"

Elsa panicked, gripping the edge of the mirror. With everything that had happened since last hearing her voice, she had nearly forgotten about Lind and her connection to her icy powers, so to have her sudden reappear in her life, especially in conjunction with Yasha's disappearance, made an overwhelming fit of emotion grip her chest as she tried to strangle more answers from the dying mirror.

"Wait! What do you mean you'll reveal everything? Answer me, Lind!" she cried, her magic causing frost to creep through the ornate designs of the mirror and turn it from a brilliant gold into a pale blue, while the blackened surface began to crack and splinter. Her heart was raging out of control, taking her powers with it, and she once more feared the resonance of her magic with the voice of Lind, though she was willing to risk reliving those memories if only to have a few answers to her many questions.

At the moment, it felt like her hurting heart had only questions to keep it going.

In response to her magic and in a brilliant burst of light, the mirror suddenly shattered in her hands, making her cry out loudly as she was thrown to the stone floor, her eyes full of dust and her body twisted in pain. Her chest felt like it was being pierced by countless shards of glass and an overwhelming cold overtook her. Even her voice was silenced by the pain and a thousand ghostly images that flashed through her mind, as they had once before when Lind had first touched her heart. An entire lifetime of pain and loneliness impaled her, choking the breath from her chest, until she finally felt blackness wash through her and she went limp on the stone floor, alone and in the dark.

A dark sleep overcame her, giving her the rest she had been denying herself for days, but saturated in ancient magic that enchanted her heart and her mind.

It was a dreamless slumber, and she remained in the dark for a long time, her breathing pulsing in the silence and her body shivering, until another sound permeated the room, stirring the silent ghosts and pounding off the ancient walls.

A pair of heavy boots approached the sleeping queen as the masked shadow had come again, the devilish face staring down at her and its black body still blending effortlessly in the darkness. After looking over her helpless form, it slowly knelt down next to her and reached out a gloved hand like a demon's claw, yet carefully brushed aside the hair that had fallen in her face, giving a clear view of her beautiful features and the way her lips were pulsing with soft, tormented breaths.

Seeing the angelic sight, the shadow appeared taken by her, running the back of black fingers down her cheek softly, while two eyes gazed at her from behind the mask, making sure to consume as much of her as the darkness would allow. As gently as a shadow could, the claw moved down her body until it rested on her hand that was clutched to her chest, closing around her fingers and raising them up towards the fanged mask, as if the demon would begin to devour her at any moment.

With both claws clutching her hand, the figure hunched forward solemnly, placing her curled fingers against the metal grate over its mouth, then ceased to move entirely. The only sound it made was a low, shuddering moan as its chest rippled forcefully in response to the moment it had with the radiant queen.

If reacting to the way it was prostrated before her, Elsa's face twisted slightly as her lips parted to utter a single name to the darkness, the one name that had dominated her for what seemed like an eternity.

"Yasha..."

With the name echoing in the dark room, the shadow suddenly recoiled, as if she were the most frightening shadow of all. Feeling the weight of the moment, he trembled in the dark, then stepped back further from the silent queen, its black body fading into the darkness once more and leaving only the bright sheen of the mask, until it too disappeared into a swirl of fire that blew back the darkness for a moment, and then left her alone in the room.

She would lie there, unconscious to the waking world beyond the windows and unaware that when she finally awakened from the night, there would only be more questions for her, along with the ghostly summons of a voice from her heart and a place where she must go to find her answers. Even in her sleep she could remember it, spoken by Lind's crystal clear voice.

_You'll find me to the north, in the frozen kingdom of Lapland._

_Come to me, and I'll give you everything you've ever wanted._

_My dear child._

_Elsa._


	2. Broken Memories

**II**

Broken Memories

Anna was hurrying to Elsa's room. When she first found out that Elsa had been found in some strange room of the castle, collapsed and unconscious, she had nearly gone crazy from the panic, though all of the hours spent at her bedside had yielded little as Elsa remained asleep for over two days, with little explanation from the doctor as to why. The stress of her impending wedding was obvious, but there was something unnatural about her sudden slumber, even as Elsa had seemingly slept so little before the incident. Anna tried to remain calm as she marched forward, yet she was also a victim of her heart, stretched by both Elsa and Yasha, until she was unsure what she needed to prioritize, though with the immediate concern apparent before her.

Now that Elsa had suddenly awoken, she made a straight line to see her.

"Is she awake? Is she okay?" she called as she found the familiar figure of Johann standing in the hallway outside of the queen's room. Her questions barely made it out past the panting.

Johann turned from the door and faced her, raising his hands up to both calm her concerns and her breathing. "She's fine. She's fine," he replied, though something in his voice made her wince, as if he wasn't totally convinced of that. "There doesn't seem to be anything amiss. She's awake, and the doctor has requested that she stay in bed a bit longer to regain her strength."

"But?" she said, knowing there was more to this than that.

He took a deep breath and looked towards the door. "But...Queen Elsa seems distant. Cold, even. I can't really explain it, but she hasn't eaten anything since awakening and she barely speaks. It's as if something in that room has taken her, though I can't explain what," he explained, looking back to her to offer the true depth of his concern. "It could be the stress, or it could be something else. I don't know what to make of it."

Anna looked to the door as well, finding the same strangely sickening feeling as when she had looked at her door in the past, but then shook off the bad feeling that was coming over her and looked back to him. She was far beyond retreating from her door.

"I'll talk to her. It's nothing that I can't handle," she claimed confidently and dramatically started rolling up her sleeves.

Her confidence was contagious and he offered a slight smile, hoping more than anything that she would be able to succeed. He knew that if anyone could bring the queen from her depression, it was Anna. "Good luck then," he said with a nod, reaching over to open the door, but then stopping her abrupt entrance with a soft touch to her arm, making her look back to him once more. "Have patience, Princess. The queen may not seem herself. I don't need to explain to you what she's been going through, but give her a little time. If anyone can reach her, it's you."

The echoes of his concerns struck her more powerfully this time, but she had every confidence in the world that she could shake Elsa from whatever was bothering her, just as she had done before.

With his warning hanging over her, she stepped through the open door into the room. Instantly, she was aware how cool it was. The balcony doors were open and it sent a breeze through the sheer curtains that hung around the bed, casting Elsa's figure like a ghost. She was sitting upright, looking out quietly. Anna shivered.

To wave off her anxiety, she hurried around the ghostly veil to Elsa's side, though her sister didn't even look at her. "Hi," Anna said softly, taking the chair next to her bed and leaning forward, placing her hands tightly onto Elsa's. The queen's eyes fluttered a bit, as if she were broken from a trance, then they slowly moved to her, though their initial response shocked her. It was almost like Elsa didn't recognize her.

"Anna," she whispered after a moment.

"Yeah, it's me," Anna replied worriedly, "How do you feel?"

Elsa thought a moment, her eyes falling.

"Cold."

A twisted smirk flared over Anna's face, for she couldn't tell if she was being serious or trying to make a joke. Everything about her behavior was making her heart race, and she was trying to restrain the overwhelming alarm that was rising in her chest. "That's kind of weird. You know, what with the magic and all. I thought it never bothered you," she laughed, awkwardly trying to inject a lighter mood in the room but feeling intimidated by her strange response.

Despite the attempt, Elsa continued to look away, though didn't look like she was looking at anything at all. Anna's restlessness grew. "Anyway, a storage room is a pretty bizarre place for the queen to be taking a nap. At least you could have used one of the couches and pulled one of the sheets up around you so you didn't catch a cold. Your colds are pretty wild, after all," she said, reaching up softly to press her hand to Elsa's forehead, but finding the touch deceptively normal. She had been expecting a fever, or something much colder.

"What exactly were you doing in there?"

Elsa's brow twisted and her eyes moved slightly, as if she were trying to remember a dream.

"Chasing shadows," she whispered.

"Uhm, okay," Anna replied, not understanding.

Just the expression Elsa wore was enough to stoke the terror she felt inside, but to hear the tone in her voice as she gave such obscure responses was more than her courtesy would allow, for she was genuinely worried and wanted to know exactly what was bothering her, and how to make it better. "You're acting pretty weird, you know. Even Johann's worried. I know you've got a lot on your mind, but I need you to talk to me about it. No more closed doors, remember?" she continued, then carefully squeezed her hand to reassure her that she was there, pleading to her with her eyes. "I'm here for you, no matter what. Just…please talk to me."

Finally, Elsa looked to her, but the chill remained. Her eyes were like ice. "Did they find the mirror?"

"Mirror?" Anna repeated, "What mirror?"

Elsa's gaze dropped again, once again suffering her hazy recollection. It was obvious that the events of the night were as much a mystery to her as they were to anyone else. "There was a beautiful mirror in that room, but it shattered. The shards felt like they went inside of me," she recalled as she placed her hand over her chest, "Now I can't remember if it even happened at all. Any of it. And the shadow..."

By now her eyes had risen back up and for the first time, Anna felt like she was looking at her sister, something that both frightened her and gave her a strange sense of relief. It looked like Elsa had a name trapped on her lips.

"They didn't find anything in that room, Elsa. There wasn't a mirror, even a broken one. It must have been a dream," she assured her

Elsa frowned. "It wasn't a dream," she replied, then looked slowly back out the open doors, appearing much as she was when Anna first came in.

"It wasn't a dream."

Seeing her revert, Anna desperately tried to keep her, not wanting to her to continue down the path that brought out such strange responses. She began to think there really had been mirrors and shadows. "Well, if it wasn't a dream, what was it? What exactly did you see? I'm sure we can figure it out together," she offered, but Elsa seemed distant again and didn't answer. Feeling as if she were once more talking to a sickly patient, Anna's overtures became more heated and she scooted closer to the side of the bed, doing whatever she could to try and reach her. "Come on, Elsa, stay with me. Even if it takes all day, we'll figure out what happened in there. You don't have to face this alone."

A heavy silence filled the room.

"Go away."

Anna flinched. "I'm sorry?" she replied, trying to figure out if she had her sister right.

"Go away. I want to be alone," Elsa repeated in a tone that was as sharp as it was distant, and something Anna was no longer accustomed to.

With painful memories of the previous distance between them, Anna's panic began to strangle her, keeping her from forming any coherent words for a few moments. Not since Arendelle had been frozen had her sister been so barbed, with those feelings of fear and helplessness raging inside of her far more potently than the memories themselves. "You can't be serious," she gasped, shaking her head slightly as her back stiffened and her voice rose, "You're found passed out in some weird place in the castle, then you sleep for two days and suddenly wake up like this, talking about mirrors and shadows. This isn't funny, Elsa. What's going on with you? You're not acting like yourself at all."

Elsa didn't answer and it only carried her panic further as she began to paw at her sister.

"Answer me, Elsa! Please!"

By now Johann had entered the room, taking a few hurried steps in to see what commotion was, though he was completely unprepared for what he found. The air bit at his skin and his breath came out as vapor. There was a sheen of frost around the ceiling and walls, and he was instantly reminded of all those times he secretly saw Elsa in her youth suffering her slipping powers. Anna was desperately trying to connect to her sister but she seemed even more distant than before, something that brought a similar level of apprehension in him, though he was quiet as he tried to find his place in their exchange, albeit with a clenched jaw.

Elsa's eyes never left the strange distance, though it was apparent she had noticed that he had entered. Her eyes continued to be ice.

"Escort her out, Captain," she ordered.

Both Anna and Johann were lost in disbelief. Nothing about Anna's appeals should have warranted such a cold response. Anna felt as if her heart was cracking in her chest and she made yet another pleading squeeze to her arm, but Elsa's behavior was vicious, for she didn't respond in the slightest, not even to pull away.

She simply sat there, as if Anna didn't exist at all.

After witnessing such a tragedy, Johann's hands tightened at his sides as he was torn between his duty and his instincts. Elsa wasn't acting normal. He knew her well enough to recognize that, but he also knew that there was little they could do about it at the moment, with so much unknown. The doctors had no answers. The room had no answers. There were nothing but questions, the only thing they seemed to have in abundance. In the end, he could only do his duty, pressed painfully through a deep breath and the emotions that followed it.

"Princess," he whispered, hating himself for what he was about to do.

Anna shot him a glance and was horrified when he gestured to the door, showing that he would obey the command regardless of how vicious it seemed. "What? No! I'm not going anywhere!" she cried, then turned her attention back to Elsa and shook her arm, trying anything she could to try and get through to her again.

"Elsa, please! You have to tell me what's going on! Why are you acting this way? What did you see in that mirror?" she pleaded, though her sister didn't respond, not even to repeat her orders.

Johann had now approached and stood stiffly at the bedside, trying to give Anna as much time as he could and looking on just as pathetically, yet finding no other recourse but to follow the orders of his queen. He would have given anything to be the voice that reached her, or to somehow help Anna in her efforts, but nothing, not even the sound of the princess's pleading voice seemed to reach Elsa, and her former villain felt complete agony at following the command.

"Anna, please," he said, shifting his attention and addressing her informally, even though he felt the familiarity didn't suit him, "Don't make this any harder than it has to be."

Anna's eyes shot at him, red and agitated. The level of betrayal in them was almost as fierce as her desire to reach Elsa, but several more moments of denial and insistence began to erode her willpower. The situation felt inadequate to pull her away, but there was so much about it that was darkness and so much she didn't understand. It was difficult appealing to her sister when she didn't even acknowledge she was there and her emotions felt like they were overflowing from inside.

Anna didn't even know the moment when she finally gave in, but she knew that as soon as she rose to her feet, she felt her heart shattered like the mirror Elsa spoke of.

With a tearful gasp, she turned and walked from the room, leaving her sister there, still broken and quiet.

Johann had expected Elsa to react to her flight, but she remained frozen in place, staring out at nothing, as if a breeze had simply made its way through the room. Shaken by her actions as well, he parted his lips to speak, but retreated when he realized he had nothing to offer. All he could do was ask the same questions, but realized that he had no chance where Anna had failed.

In the end, all he could do was turn stiffly and walk from the room, leaving her isolated and strange as he quietly closed the door behind him.

Anna was standing in the hall, quietly crying and wiping the tears from her face. The encounter had left her drained and terrified, as much about her helplessness as she was for the cold look in Elsa's eyes. Not even when she had retreated from her during their childhood had she felt such a chill, so much so that she felt there were other forces at work that she couldn't see, shadows in the darkness. She knew she had to somehow discover what had affected her so strongly, but at that moment she couldn't think straight and only wanted to see her with a smile on her face, regardless of how it happened.

She just wanted her sister back.

"I'm sorry, Princess," Johann offered as he approached her, his face showing how angry he was at his own failure and how guilty he felt at having to obey the command, "I had no choice, and perhaps this is better for the moment."

Anna tried to snuff out her sobs, pressing her palm across her cheek as she shook her head. "It's not your fault, Johann," she whimpered. She knew he had done what he had to do and that he was as helpless in the matter as she was. "I just don't know what's come over her. She was acting like I was some stranger," she continued, finally looking to him even though she showed the residual pain in her eyes. "What really happened to her down there in that room? What mirror is she talking about?"

"I have no idea. There was nothing in that room but old furniture. No one had been in there in months and there was no sign of any mirror. It doesn't make any sense," he replied, exhausted.

Trying overcome the pain she felt at not being able to reach Elsa, Anna stared at the closed door, wanting nothing more than to march back into her room and refuse to leave until Elsa was herself again, but she knew there was no point. All she would do was put Johann in a terrible spot. Sadly, she realized she could only wait to see if some time and rest helped, though somewhere deep inside she feared that no amount of time would heal whatever wounds she was covering.

Not willing to stand by and do nothing, she decided to do whatever it took to bring her sister back, even if that meant relying someone that had a sordid past when it came to Elsa.

"Johann," she said, snaring his attention, "I'm going to need your help. We have to try and find a way to get her back to normal. There's more to this than we know, and I'm starting to think this mirror she's talking about is the key. There's got to be something in that room."

"We need to find out what happened to Elsa."

Johann didn't let the gravity of her request slip away, nor did he dismiss how difficult it must have been to rely on him when he had been less than noble in the past. He had spent many months making amends for his crimes, though it never seemed to be enough. He had betrayed so many and hurt even more, so knowing that Anna would trust him with such a crucial task made a wave of pride fill his chest, and he would do anything she asked to see his queen healed.

He wouldn't let this opportunity to redeem himself slip away.

"Of course, Princess. You can count on me."


	3. Wrath of the Snow Queen

**III**

Wrath of the Snow Queen

Ice was everywhere. Even though winter had passed and there hadn't been a sign of snow for many weeks, a harsh wind was blowing over Arendelle and bringing a curtain of freezing sleet down on the unprepared kingdom. While late storms were not uncommon, this one brought a dark sky and ominous chill that made everyone shiver, as if it stirred up forgotten memories of times since past. The storm itself was an echo, for the true squall had swept through the town many minutes before, freezing anything in its path and terrifying anyone caught in its wake. Razor-sharp icicles grew from homes. Fountains had been disfigured into horrifying creatures that wailed silently into the sky. A glaze of ice covered the ground and made it nearly impossible to walk, grinding the carefree kingdom to a frozen, terrible halt.

For those that had witnessed it, not one could believe that Queen Elsa was the source of the monstrous freeze yet again.

Amidst the sounds of panic filling the air, Anna came rushing out from the castle, finding the familiar scene rattled her heart and made her come to a skidding halt on the icy ground. Kristoff was close behind her. The two of them shivered against the air, their light attire unfit for the storm, though it was nothing compared to how unprepared they felt at seeing a frozen winter invade the kingdom yet again.

Deep down, they feared the origin of the storm.

"What is this?" Anna whispered desperately.

Kristoff looked to her in concern, finding he didn't want to know the answer as he did. "I dunno, but there's only one other time I've anything like it," he replied gravely, seeing the fear in her eyes as she looked back.

"We should go see your sister."

She nodded hesitantly, then turned to rush back to the castle when another voice caught her, bringing their flight to a halt. "The queen isn't in her room," Johann reported as he approached them, his uniform and hands stained with blood. The sight made Anna flinch, for the last time the kingdom had been covered in white, there had been no red. The splash of color made her anxiety spike.

"Is that blood, Johann? Are you all right?" she gasped, rushing over to him but afraid to get any closer to the crimson sash he wore.

"I'm fine, Princess," he said quietly, casting his eyes away from her fearful stare. "It isn't mine."

His meaning escaped her, until she saw a few guards being helped towards the barracks, their faces twisted and their uniforms also stained. Unlike Johann, they had deep wounds, and the entire scene made a wave of fear wash over her, for even as she didn't want to imagine it, the reality was on her as viciously as the cold.

Her terrified eyes moved back to him. "Did…did Elsa do this?"

He winced, his eyes still cast away. He didn't want to answer that question. "More than a few guards suffered injuries, all along the frozen path that follows the queen. The ice just pierced them," he replied, trying to find the meaning in the madness while she took a step back, barely able to breathe.

"No. That's not possible," she gasped, shaking her head slowly.

Her obvious devastation made Kristoff hold her arm in support, though he was just as much in disbelief. Johann struggled with the truth as well, then slowly lifted his eyes to them, agonized by the way she took it. "I don't know the reason, but the trail of ice leads to the north. Anyone caught in her wake of it was simply thrown aside, though thankfully no one was killed and none of the townsfolk were hurt. But I can't understand why she would do this," he said.

"She hasn't been herself since she found that mirror," Kristoff suggested, "That's got to be the reason, right?" He was just as disturbed by the carnage, but was currently trying to put the pieces together, as both of his companions were caught on a deeply personal level. He felt like he might be the only one to keep a cool head, especially among the claws of ice around them. "But where would she be going? There's not much to the north but high mountains. Maybe her old palace?"

Johann's face suddenly flushed and his eyes snapped to Anna, as if someone had just hit him with a snowball full of answers.

"Lapland."

His reaction tugged her from her despair, though she was completely lost on what that meant. Kristoff, however, furrowed his brow. He recognized the name. "Lapland? Why Lapland? There's nothing up there but some old frozen kingdom that you can't even reach because of an endless snowstorm. Who would possibly want to…" he began, then realized that if there was anyone in the entire world that could want to go to such a place, it was Elsa.

Suddenly, the idea didn't seem so unbelievable.

"The queen asked me about it, though it appears I'm not the expert that our Ice Master is," Johann admitted, turning his eyes back to Anna, "She didn't speak about anything but shadows and mirrors, yet this was one place she mentioned by name. If there was a mirror that caused this madness, I'd wager that there's someone in that frozen place, and that they have something to do with this."

"I'd very much like to meet them."

Anna followed him perfectly, getting over her despair to see the path that lead to Elsa. Though this path was darker than before, she knew she had to walk it, to follow her sister wherever she went, because that was what it meant to love her.

She would go anywhere to find her. She had made that promise long ago.

"So would I," she agreed.

The icy grip around Arendelle was already thawing by the time Anna and Kristoff were assembling in front of the castle, their clothing more attuned to the icy weather they would encounter and his sled already packed with provisions. Unlike before, this winter wasn't eternal, as it seemed Elsa didn't leave them to be frozen forever. The townspeople were anxious, but the melting snow against the warm sun relieved them, as did the receding clouds that followed their wayward queen to the north. Now it was a matter of asking why she had done as she had done, as not many knew of the circumstances surrounding the mysterious mirror.

For others, there were other pressing matters in their mind.

"Look, I know how much you want to run off after Elsa again, but things are different now. Would you at least think for a minute about…" Kristoff was saying, though a sharp glance from his wife briskly stripped his arguments away.

"Don't even start about the pregnant thing," Anna snapped, heaving as the situation and the emotions were tearing her apart, "I'm not going to sit around knitting baby clothes while someone else goes after her! I can walk just fine, and we'll be in the sled the whole time anyway."

In light of his continued resistance, her expression became distinctly sharper as she suddenly rose up on her toes, poking her finger into his chest. "I'm going whether you like it or not, so instead of wasting your breath trying to convince me to stay, go find me a pillow. Your sled isn't exactly pregnant-wife friendly, you know," she griped, then spent an extra moment considering what else was needed for the trip.

"And…a pickle. Bring pickles."

He groaned, rolling to the side as he knew he had no defense against her. When it came to Elsa, there was no stopping her and the discomfort of her pregnancy only added to his shaky stance. Despite the fact that something dangerous might be waiting for them at the end of their trek, he knew he would never convince her to wait, even though every ounce of him worried for her safety and the safety of their unborn child.

"You don't even know what we'll find when we get there!" he argued, "What about the wolves? You remember the wolves?"

Before she could snap back, another figure approached, breaking their argument with the chime of his carefully polished sword. "I'll handle the wolves, if you don't mind," Johann remarked, adjusting the sleeve of plated armor over his arm as he casually walked up and took a place with them, his clawed gauntlet finally settling over the hilt of his blade. Anna grimaced when she saw the armor, with its greenish plates and proud family crest, for the last time she had seen it was the Sacking of Arendelle, when she had been sure he was going to try and take the throne from Elsa.

Though that day had seen him regain his honor and defend his queen, the sight of it still made her uneasy.

"Hang on, Johann. I can't take half of the kingdom with me. Someone has to stay here and take care of things," she objected, wincing at what she was about to do, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm putting you in charge until we return. No funny business."

The significance of handing the kingdom over to the disgraced regent's son was lost on no one, yet the fiery look in his green eyes showed that while she was currently the only one who could command him, he wasn't even considering her orders. "Forgive me, Princess, but in a matter of weeks I've lost both the queen and the man she intends to marry. Now you're off to bring her back while I stand around here and do nothing?" he said, finally receiving his horse from the stables and quickly vaulting up into the saddle, settling into the leather and reigning the animal into place at her side. "I'm not letting either of you out of my sight, or would you have my shame be that much more unbearable, should I lose the entire royal family within a month's time?"

His stubbornness made her groan, as everyone seemed to be ignoring her demands. "Ugh, is anyone actually listening to me?" she growled, then found Kristoff had placed a pillow in the sled per her demand, which placated her slightly.

Gruffly exhaling, she pulled herself up into the sled, albeit with a little effort, then settled onto the pillow regally, trying to hide how out of breath she was. "Fine! You can go," she relented, then gave him a snide glance, "But tone it down, would you? You're starting to sound like Yasha."

The remark made him grouse in the saddle. "That's hardly flattering, Princess."

As their party had grown and continued to prepare, Olaf came casually sliding up into the back of the sled, followed by a streaming orange light that circled him. Anna almost didn't notice them, but turned to find the snowman and the fire sprite waiting for their departure, as if they had been there all along. "Olaf? Sid?" she said in surprise, then looked over her shoulder to make sure Kristoff wasn't within earshot, "You guys don't need to go. It could be dangerous."

Olaf tilted his head. "Wait, I thought this chasing after Elsa thing was always a package deal. You go. Kristoff goes. Sven goes. I go, and my little fire angel goes," he suggested, counting them all off on his twiggy fingers. "Although I'm not sure why the one who used to be a bad guy is going."

Johann smirked.

"Ugh, are you people trying to make the pregnant lady crazy?" Anna complained with her hands to her head, though she then gave a short glance over to Sid, who was burning furiously around Olaf's head. She had greatly mixed feelings about her going along.

"Oh, save your breath, bait. I'm going because whenever that snow hussy is in trouble, Yasha usually shows up. So don't think this has anything to do with you and your stupid sister. I'm only looking for him," she remarked, crossing her arms tightly over her chest.

The sprite's usual demeanor made Anna sigh again and put her hand to her face, wondering how they had managed an even stranger group than before. Her reason did stir up the lingering problem of Elsa's missing fiancée, yet it only compounded how heavy her heart felt. A small part of her hoped the problems were related and that they really would come across him in the course of chasing her, for Sid's logic was infallible and deeply rooting in the truth.

Whenever Elsa was involved, Yasha was never far behind.

"If you're going after the queen, then we're coming as well," said a new group of people and it drew their attention. They were royal guards, some of them bandaged from their wounds and all carrying spears and swords, with brooding expressions on their faces. At the front was a large man holding a spear, and his arm was in a sling from where the queen's ice had impaled him. Anna recognized him as one of Yasha's favorite guards. She remembered his name was Thias.

Fearing how they were reacting to Elsa's vicious flight, she stood in the sled and looked out over them, hoping they weren't representative of how the rest of the kingdom reacted to her assault. She raised her hands out to placate them. "Okay, let's just everyone be calm for a minute. I know you might be mad about what happened, but Elsa isn't herself right now. Let me go find her and bring her back. Then we can have a nice, calm discussion without any of those," she explained, pointing nervously at the spear Thias held. Her overtures made a few of them look around strangely, though most kept staring forward quietly, as if her words could do nothing against their hearts.

Their silent reaction made her worry even more, though it was Johann that spoke next as he reigned his horse nearby. "You misunderstand them, Princess," he suggested, looking out over the guards with a glimmer of pride in his eyes. "They're not a lynch mob. They're those that have sworn to serve the queen no matter the circumstance."

"They only want to see her home once more, safely and without this enchantment that's stolen her away."

Anna looked back, seeing them now for what they were. Despite the ice and despite the wounds, they were volunteering to chase after Elsa and bring her home. She had earned their devotion, and they would go anywhere to help her in spite of their injuries. Anna felt their affection as it resonated with her own and she realized that they had come so far since the last time Arendelle had frozen, with no one being taken in by pointed fingers or mindless anger. The gesture made a warm smile cross her face. "Oh, you guys. I don't even know what to say," she said, wishing Elsa had been there to see it. Knowing she had an entire regiment of support to chase her this time was touching, a far cry from when Anna had to strike off on her own the first time. Knowing that so many people loved Elsa made her even more focused on bringing her back, just so she could appreciate just how much the kingdom needed her.

It also made her next command that much harder. "But there are people here that need help, and a slushy mess that could use a few strong arms. It might be best that only a few of us go get her. I want you to help here and wait for us to bring her back. Okay?" she explained, feeling bad she had to deny them their part in Elsa's rescue.

The guards were quiet, looking between themselves, but then Thias stepped forward, saluting her with his good arm. "You don't need to ask us, Princess. You only need to command us. We trust you to bring back the queen," he replied, and the rest of them saluted her as well.

Although disappointed, they understood her and Thias turned, calling them to follow him as they headed into the town to help clean up. Anna watched them go with a soft smile, sitting slowly in the sled as she admired their duty. Johann mirrored her, quietly sharing in the same charge, to serve Arendelle and its royal family, especially as he had only recently come to realize how special that responsibility was.

Glancing to Anna and Kristoff, he realized the task of keeping them safe was his part of that duty, a duty he swore to succeed in. Even if he couldn't bring Elsa home, he would make sure Anna did.

With all of their preparations complete and the importance of their task hanging over them, Kristoff hopped up into the sled and made one last check. He gave a final glance to Anna, eager to try one last time to convince her to stay, though the apparent fire in her eyes warned him of the futility. He would just quietly share in Johann's duty to make sure nothing happened to her. Anna was staring into the distance, her eyes locked on the dark clouds that still hung in the north. Her hands were tightly wrapped at her stomach, for lately even carriage rides made her uncomfortable, but even a rough sled through unknown terrain wouldn't discourage her from chasing Elsa, especially when something unnaturally had seized her like a nightmare and carried her off. They had to follow her through the snow and the darkness, risk her unnatural wrath, then find out the secrets of the mirror, and why they had drawn her to the mysterious palace in the eternally frozen kingdom of Lapland.

And for some reason, she felt they had to hurry.

"Okay, let's go get Elsa."

* * *

Elsa stood before the raging storm, her solitary figure blending in with the torrent of white and blue. There were only footsteps in the snow behind her and before her a blizzard so powerful that nothing could be seen beyond. In spite of the cold, she stood there for a long time, her glowing turquoise eyes cast forward and her red lips pressed closed, while her posture was like that of a person possessed and lost in memory.

After an unspoken amount of time passed, she slowly lifted her hand out, her palm commanding the impassable squall to suddenly disperse. The winds stopped. The snow stopped. The sunlight came through around her.

With the storm broken, her body suddenly tensed up, the glow in her eyes raging in conjunction with a glow at her chest. The ethereal light pooled in her body and came rushing out, swirling up into the air before until the last of its control ripped away, making her lurch forward to her knees, gasping wildly as she coughed. Her memory was hazy, as if she were remembering a dream, with the only lucid image of the mirror in her head, though that image soon gave away to a dark, cold feeling and the fear that something had happened, though she couldn't recall what.

Deep inside, she shivered at the flashes of ice and blood, hoping that it was all just a nightmare.

Once she had recovered, she looked up the pooling light, shocked at finding herself in the middle of a snowy landscape and faced by this unnatural thing. Rising to her feet, she kept her eyes on the glow, watching it ebb and flow, then slowly crystalize before her into a beautiful snowflake, one that defied nature with its size. It rotated casually, mesmerizing her for a moment. Even for her, the ice had a strange beauty and she lifted her hand out to it, taking a shaky breath.

Instantly, she recoiled her hand painfully, for the edges of the snowflake were like blades and she looked to the cut at her finger where the red blood was dashed across her white skin. The crystalline entity seemed unconcerned with her wound, then slowly began to drift off into the cleared sky, as if simply going about its business. In the distance, she could see many more of these unnaturally large snowflakes, along with other creatures that seemed to be made of pure ice. They looked like bees, but made no sound and had no flowers to attend to. Despite being utterly desolate, the fields before her took her breath away, but only for a moment as her eyes finally fell to the distance and the frozen sentinel that waited for her.

It was a castle. Unlike her creation at the top of a tall mountain, this castle was constructed of stone, but had been completely overrun with cold. Ice framed its ancient pillars and held the grounds in a perpetual winter, locking the entire place in an eternal sleep, where not even time mattered. The countless questions she had about her situation fell away to how taken she was with it, as if she knew it from somewhere.

She felt as if she had been there before.

Speechless and unsure what to do, she suddenly saw the flash of a shadow at the entrance, revealing that this wasn't some abandoned castle luring her with hazy memories. There was someone there, and her mind was clear enough to remember the two names from the dark room with the mirror. She knew the shadow had to be one of them, though didn't know why.

The shadow was Lind, or it was Yasha.

It was one of them that was waiting for her there.

Both prospects made her suddenly press on through the snow. Despite her affinity, she seemed to have trouble moving through it, but nothing was going to stop her from reaching the frozen gate, which towered before her like a frightening guardian that would deny her of the many answers inside. When she reached it, it was cold against her hand. With a grunt, she pressed against it, finding that ice had locked it tightly. The rational response to use her magic escaped her, for she was too desperate to get inside to realize she held the key, yet with her passionate efforts to simply push through, the frigid guardian broke down the center, making her yelp slightly, then stare up as the huge gates parted for her, revealing the gardens beyond.

It was a world of winter. Sheer planes of white reflected light from all angles, making some areas bright and some areas dark. Beds of frozen flowers stood motionlessly in the cold, colorless and sharp. Trees and bushes were strangled by icicles, though didn't droop from the weight, as if they had been stuck in that moment they were frozen, then held there for eternity. The fountains still seemed liquid, but unmoving. There were no people. No animals. The entire place was devoid of life, and Elsa walked in slowly, looking around in total awe. Her magic never seemed to grasp things so coldly. Everything here was stiff yet strangely natural, and she was drawn to it, even though it made her heart wail.

As she turned slowly through the garden, taking sweeping steps as she looked on in awe, she suddenly turned to meet someone's face. She chirped in surprise, but found like with the mirror, it was her face staring back. Strangely, after so much isolation, she found her expression surprising. She was getting tired of feeling like she was looking at someone else when she saw that face. Looking around, she found several sheets of ice around her, each reflecting her at different angles, though she was lost at where to go, for the entrance to the palace seemed out of reach and the path uncertain.

"_Welcome home, Elsa._"

Startled, Elsa looked around for the voice that suddenly broke the silence, yet only found her reflections dancing around her, equally trying to discover its source.

"Who's there?" she gasped.

No one answered, but her reflection in the ice behind her suddenly began to move out of sync, straightening to stare at her, a soft smile covering its face. Her familiar image began to shift and glow, slowly changing shape until it was a completely different person looking back, though gazing with the same eyes filled with the subtle turquoise glow. Seeing the panicked queen before her, the figure slowly stepped out of the ice, as if it were nothing but air between them, until it stood behind her, opening her arms out to usher in the long-awaited meeting.

"I've been waiting for you for a very long time," the woman said and Elsa whirled around, shocked to find someone where none had been before.

The woman was familiar. Just seeing her made Elsa fight to breathe and her hand flew to her chest, as if her beating heart would betray her. Even though she had never seen her before, she instantly knew her and the name slipped effortlessly from her lips, ringing with a familiarity that seemed to resonated throughout the garden, and her raging heart within.

"Lind."


	4. Succession

**IV**

Succession

"You're Lind, aren't you?"

Elsa stood in the frozen gardens, staring into the turquoise eyes of the woman before her. She had never seen anyone so beautiful. Her skin was perfectly white, offsetting the glow in her eyes and the dark blue color in her lips. Her hair was even lighter than Elsa's, but was short and swept up and back, defying gravity with its frigid style. She also wore an ephemeral gown that tightly wound her petite form, offering little protection against the biting cold that had rendered the surrounding gardens eternally locked out of the flow of time, as otherworldly as the woman that stood as the matriarch of this frozen world.

Even though she had thought herself prepared to face the haunting presence that had possessed her so often in her journey to Fria, Elsa found herself nearly unable to breathe.

"That's right," the woman replied softly, her voice so much clearer and harmonious compared to the times it resonated in Elsa's head. She didn't seemed put off by her heavy gaze and slowly flared her arms out, allowing her to look as much as she wanted. "I guess this is our first meeting, of sorts. Am I everything you thought I'd be?"

While every lesson she had ever learned told her how terrible it was to stare as she was, Elsa felt like she had no control over herself, if only because being this close to Lind made her heart beat faster than she ever expected.

"You're so beautiful," she whispered.

The remark made Lind laugh softly, though her reaction bothered Elsa slightly, as whenever she saw someone laugh in such way, it was usually accompanied by a flush of color in their face. With Lind, her skin remained flawlessly white, despite her smile. "It makes me happy to hear you say that, and I was just thinking the same thing about you," she replied, making no attempt to hide her obvious interest in the younger woman as she stepped forward, slowly and seductively. "It's one thing to know you over impossible distances, and very much another to have you right in front of me." She was overwhelmingly pleased when Elsa didn't move away as she reached out and drew her slender fingers across the redness in her cheeks.

"You're more beautiful than I ever imagined, Elsa."

Despite complying with her approach, Elsa suddenly winced when she felt the touch of her fingers, her head drawing back slightly as she looked to the hand. Lind found the response odd and her expression weakened. "Is something wrong?"

"Your hand," Elsa gasped, reaching up and taking it between hers, handling her far beyond the realm of expectation that their introduction would demand, "It's like ice!"

Elsa's concerns made Lind's smile flower once more and she reveled in her touch, feeling sorry she had to ruin the mood with the answer she demanded. "My hand is ice," she explained and Elsa's eyes shot up, her mouth hanging slightly open in complete confusion. Lind found her expression adorable. "This entire body is ice," she continued, raising out her other arm, as if it would somehow answer the question when her words wouldn't. Elsa looked over her arm, her hand and then the rest of her. Aside from the biting cold sensation at her touch, there was nothing that could prove such a claim. Her hair moved with the wind. Her skin twisted and flexed. Her eyes moved fluidly and her lips remained warmly drawn in a welcoming smile. There wasn't a single thing that would betray her as anything but the beautiful woman before her, yet she found no reason to doubt her, even if it was impossible to believe.

"I don't understand," she admitted.

Lind laughed softly once more. "No, I guess not. This body is a doll, made purely of ice. For the ancient magic, such constructs are a simple matter. I know it's a little rude of me to greet you this way, but once you come inside, you'll understand why," she responded, taking the opportunity to wrap her fingers into Elsa's and tug on her hand, turning to lead her into her frozen castle.

Despite her spell, Elsa resisted and kept looking for more answers, her blue eyes searching frantically for some reason to trust her.

Once more, Lind found her expression intoxicating. "You have nothing to fear, and you've already come this far. I only want to meet you in person," she noted, still putting pressure for Elsa to follow but making sure not to pull too hard. After spending so long waiting for this moment, she was having a hard time controlling her impatience, even if she hid it perfectly from Elsa's demanding eyes.

With no more answers than before, Elsa knew she shouldn't simply follow Lind's lead. She had possessed her and controlled her, making her attack the ones she loved most and muddied her mind with magic and glass. Every shred of logic and instinct told her to stand against her will and demand to know what was going on, yet as she stood there, feeling her resonate so deeply within, all she could think about was how strange and exciting it was to touch her hand, even if it wasn't real. What stood before her was just a doll, but she could tell that Lind the origin of her magic, a pedigree that made it difficult to resist her. A small part of her wished for Anna or Yasha to give her strength and guidance, yet as she was alone before the purveyor of her ancient powers, she didn't even look back to see if anyone was there, instead going along with Lind as they entered the silent, frozen castle.

The interior of Lind's castle was much the same as the gardens, white and cold. The furnishings and the décor were locked lifelessly in place and the floor was glazed with a thin sheet of ice, making it challenging for even Elsa to walk. There were signs of damage and some furnishings were in disarray, though it appeared as though they had been that way before the ice, and now lay covered by an ancient layer of frost. Her host made no further conversation as she led her deeper within, through a large hall with two spiraling staircases on either side, with one shattered and lying in rubble on the floor. The large doors at the back of this hall were ignored as the two of them walked to a smaller door to the side, Elsa's shoes echoing loudly while Lind's bare feet made no sound. The stillness followed them into a maze of corridors that turned so often Elsa had no idea which direction she faced. They passed countless doors, all frozen solid and sealed, until they finally stopped in front of one of them, no different than the rest.

Reaching out, the ice retreated from Lind's hand until the door was free, then broke open with a firm push that revealed the room beyond.

A large bedroom was framed with an entire wall of frosted windows, letting in the sterile white light from the endless ice fields outside. The plush bed was a ghost of itself, with icicles hanging from the posts and the blankets locked firmly under the frost. A large vanity was clouded with cold and the chandeliers were aglow with sunlight as opposed to absent flames.

Despite the fact that the room was one of the most beautiful she had ever seen, Elsa thought how lonely it was, bleak with silence and bleached by an endless winter.

At the back of the room, faced with the frigid light but sparkling in its presence, an entire wall of ice had grown over a single silhouette, set deep within the waves of silent cold. Upon seeing the room's only resident, Elsa gasped and walked in, past the doll and without fear. Her eyes were locked solely on the figure within, and she could barely speak past her awe.

"That's…" she whispered, but was unable to finish even a single sentence.

"That's me. The real me," the doll said, walking around her from behind and glancing to the figure. She was a perfect reflection of the doll's artificial gaze, though the avatar's attention didn't linger for very long. Soon, she was looking to Elsa once more, watching her every reaction and the way she seemed entranced. "A very long time ago, I sealed myself away here, to be alone, untouched by the passage of time. Perfectly protected by beautiful, flawless ice."

Elsa ran her hand down the ice, as if trying to finally reach the real Lind, while utterly unable to look away from her angelic, sleeping face.

"How long have you been like this?" she asked. The question made Lind laugh softly and she looked over, wondering why she would react that way.

Lind shrugged apologetically. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. It's just I don't really know. It's been too long to keep track," she replied, trying wave off her expression and slowly looking back up to her true self, "But when I first came here, your Arendelle wasn't yet a kingdom, but a town on the fjord."

Elsa gasped. "But the castle was built over a hundred years ago!"

"There it is then," Lind replied dismissively, though continued to watch the surprise play over the younger woman's face. "Time has no meaning here, Elsa. Be it a hundred days or a hundred years, everything is eternal to the ice," she continued, though realized she didn't want to dwell on the differences between them, but rather the things they had in common, "But I'm certain you didn't come here to ask me about that. You want to know about something more intimate to you, something that you've known every day of your life."

"You want to know about your powers, don't you?"

The sudden shift in topic made Elsa flinch, though she felt a strange relief at being handed the answers she sought so fiercely. It was the singular reason she had come.

"Yes," she answered.

Lind nodded, then raised her hand up the wall of ice next to her real body. A light slipped from her touch and swirled across the ice, causing countless sparkles of magic to fill it, much as it had been within the mirror in the basement of Arendelle. In that light, images began to form, like ghosts and shadows, until they began to brighten and come into focus, completely enslaving every ounce of Elsa's attention and the glow that had appeared in her eyes as well.

Lind watched her intently.

"Then I will tell you a story, not nearly as old as before, but concerning the time when I received a very important visitor to this place."

_I came to this place long ago, for reasons unimportant. It was abandoned and quiet, and so I sealed it away in eternal ice and created the storm to keep the world at bay. And then I slept as well, leaving various servants to ward away visitors, though there are some in this world that can't be kept away by storms and servants, especially when they have something they want. Once, I was known as the Ice Witch, and that's a name that followed me here, dragging a rare few who defied the warnings. With most, I simply ignored them and they succumbed to the cold. But not all would give in, and it was one of those unconquerable souls that set out to meet the Ice Witch, if only because he couldn't afford to fail._

_That man was your father._

_One day, he came here, braving the eternal storm with his queen held tightly to his chest. They were both half-frozen, without an escort, and teetering on the verge of death. The young woman was particularly weak. Even as my servants were bearing down on them, the young king didn't retreat for a moment, calling loudly for the 'Mistress of Ice' to reveal herself. Maybe he thought the name polite, but it was the fire in that his eyes that pardoned his invasion, and I sent my servants away. Revealing myself, I was somewhat curious what power made him endure all of the dangers of my realm, carrying a sickly woman, and making fierce demands with his eyes._

_Admittedly, he was an interesting man._

"_Speak quickly, young king," I told him, offering only the slightest thread of patience, "Why have you come?"_

"_My wife is very sick. She's had a fever for weeks and no one can cure her," he explained, looking frantically to the woman in his arms. "I was told that you have mystical powers to temper any heat. And so I've come here seeking your help."_

"_Please, save her! I'll do anything to see her brought well."_

_I nearly laughed. For countless years, I had been isolated in this place, seeing no one and seeking no one. I had done everything I could to shut out the world, yet the world still came to find me and use me for my magic. He thought me some healer. It was as if someone were playing a prank on the both of us. Truthfully, I thought about ending the both of them myself. Who would miss a foolish man that seeks to use a power he knows nothing about? Yet, as he cradled that woman, a king kneeling before me, I felt something I hadn't in a long time. His overtures made me remember things long past, and I gave in to a moment of compassion, and in also to a moment of desire._

_I suddenly realized that this young king might give me something I thought I no longer wanted._

"_Why would I do this?" I replied, testing his resolve, "What possible reason should I care for you or your queen?"_

"_I love her," he replied, sparing me no excuse or just cause. For him, that was reason enough._

_And I despised his response almost as much as I admired it._

"_A sad reason to risk your lives," I replied, though I was already formulating a future in my mind, one that would take advantage of this king's love for his queen. He had no other response but the continued demand in his eyes, and so I decided to use them to one day make my own dreams come true. "But very well. I will do as you ask."_

_His relief was unimaginable._ "_Thank you, my lady," he gasped, hope flourishing in his eyes, "And I will stand by my words. I will give you anything you demand."_

"_You have nothing I desire, young king of Arendelle. But one day, perhaps…" _

_I could tell he didn't truly understand what I wanted, but that was fine. His understanding wasn't required. I used the ancient magic to cool the fever of his queen, giving her relief and bringing the color out of her skin. At the same time, I left a piece of it inside her, to keep her well and protect my investment in her. Then I commanded them to leave, clouding their memories of this place so that they would never seek to return. That young king and queen returned to their world and I returned to my slumber, now dreaming of the day when my seed would bloom into a beautiful flower, one that would someday take root in this place and end my loneliness._

_That flower was the first child born of those two, blessed with a piece of my magic and destined to one day return here to me._

_That child is you._

"So you see, I've been waiting for you for a very long time, Elsa," Lind finished, letting the images fade away from the ice as she lowered her hand, with her eyes watching Elsa for her every expression, a possessive glow set deeply in her eyes, "This is a very special day for me."

"My child has finally come home."

Elsa stood quietly, her hand across her chest and her eyes cast downward in thought. She never realized there was so much pedigree in her magic, but she suddenly understood many other things. While she had never doubted who her parents were, the things that set her apart from everyone else made perfect sense, such as why she possessed the magic when Anna didn't, or why her hair color was so different than anyone else in her family. Despite knowing of the events that were set in motion long before her birth, she still had a difficult time grasping them when they were spelled out right before her.

"It was you all along. That must be why they never told me any of this," she whispered, looking to her hands and understanding now why her parents had never spoken of their meeting with Lind. "I always thought it was some kind of curse."

"It's so much the opposite," Lind assured her, stepping forward and slipping her icy fingers around her shaky hands, "Elsa, I've never shared my power with anyone before, never had a 'child' as you understand it. But in the end, I decided that only someone who knows the ancient magic could understand me, could be with me."

"Only you can end my solitude."

Her touch once more sent chills through her and Elsa looked up, feeling a deep sense of sadness with her reason. Being alone and isolated was something that resonated strongly with her, but a powerful warning began to grow inside of her, with all of the talk of being the child of ancient magic. Her heart heated, she was brought back to the only other 'child' she knew and why there was so much more to this than simply fulfilling the wishes of a lonely immortal.

"Before, when we were in Fria, it seemed like you and Nazir knew each other. What he wanted to do with his child wasn't nearly so kind," she said sharply, nearly pulling her hands away in the memory of just how close Yasha had come to being devoured by his despotic father.

Lind's warm expression suddenly collapsed and a wave of anger surged through her eyes. The reaction struck Elsa for its venom. "Let's not speak of that man," she snapped, letting her emotions possess the doll, "He used people for the sake of his Heart. He did everything for the sake of his Heart. What he did to his children was how he sustained his power. It's an abomination on the ancient magic."

The reaction did little to temper Elsa's doubts, though she was now confident there was more to Lind and Nazir than met the eye. It made her even more cautious in accepting Lind's design.

"And how are you different?" she demanded.

Seeing the harmony of their meeting soured by the subject, Lind tried to regain control over her anger. Her child was showing more resistance than anticipated, a product of Nazir's ongoing legacy. Quietly and from a place deep inside, she once more cursed the fate they shared. "The Heart promises immortality, but not eternal life. That man discovered that if he fed the Heart, it would go on forever. So he gifted his children and devoured his children, like a serpent devouring its own tail into infinity," she explained, making sure to distance herself from the wicked king and placate the concerns that were potent in Elsa's face. "I've never sacrificed anyone for my magic. Instead, I've slept here, only using its power to protect this place. Over the course of time my Heart will grow weaker and one day fade away, but that's a fate I've long accepted."

With such a contrasting nature spelled out, Elsa was happy to hear that she wasn't like Nazir. Even though she had only met him briefly, the schemes he had against Yasha and his people had nurtured a powerful resentment, something that had only grown as she fell in love with the wicked king's son and shared in his obvious disdain for him.

With Lind seemingly having the same feelings, it made it that much easier to accept her, though that wasn't the most powerful effect of her words. From the moment it slipped from her angry lips, something else had struck powerfully in Elsa's chest.

"Your Heart?"

Lind's smile grew. The shift of the subject was bringing her back where she wanted her and she knew this was the one thing that would wipe away any lingering doubt. This was the one thing that would truly bring Elsa home.

"The IceHeart, of course," she replied.

"The IceHeart?" Elsa gasped.

"Did you think the ancient magic simply appears out of nowhere? You've already seen that man's FireHeart. It was the source of his power, and the IceHeart is the source of mine. And it's here, where no one could hope to exploit or harm it. Or us," she explained, once more tightening her grip on her hands and watching as the resistance bled from her.

"Would you like to see it?"

Elsa's mind had gone blank and her heart was beating fiercely in her chest. The only thing that came clearly to her was the answer that slipped almost instantly from her hanging lips.

"Yes."

The longing in her voice made Lind smile softly, then turn from her frozen form and lead Elsa by the hand from the room, heading back towards the large hall they had first walked through, like a suitor leading a bride to their wedding bed. The large doors in the hall gave them entrance and they proceeded down a long corridor until they entered yet another large room, one with a pair of frozen thrones set behind a great titan of presence and emotion for Elsa.

Instantly, she was reminded of when she first saw the FireHeart in the heart of the volcano, for the orb that sat before her was its mirror image, yet composed entirely of ice. While it should have been solid and unmoving, it seemed to churn in the same manner as the fire had, like a blue sun hovering majestically above the floor. Also in contrast to the torrent of emotion she had felt in Fria, the emotions she felt here were smooth and soothing, drawing Elsa away from Lind's hand as she approached in awe, her eyes never seeming to get enough of it.

Just as she had been completely unable to describe how she felt before the FireHeart, she couldn't even begin to grasp her emotions as she stood before the IceHeart.

"Here it is," Lind said softly, enjoying every moment of Elsa's awe, "My Heart."

"It's incredible," Elsa sang.

In deference to Elsa's trance, Lind's attention was solely on her. She watched in secret elation as the IceHeart dominated the young queen's mood. "Surely you now understand the difference. That man and his Heart were monstrous things that constantly wanted to feed, to burn through everything around them. My Heart is quiet and still, resting here as the source of our magic," she said, taking a step up to stand next to her and finally looking over her Heart. "It doesn't require the sacrifice. It doesn't have to be a terrible thing. It can simply exist as the impenetrable shield around us, and the force that binds us together."

"It is different," Elsa whispered, nodding and slowly closing her eyes to bask in its presence. "The FireHeart screamed at me, so loud it hurt my ears. This is like music. I've never heard anything like it, but it feels warm. So strangely warm."

With her own words floating around her clouded mind, she suddenly remembered that Yasha had said many of the same things in Fria and smiled slightly as she felt like she understood yet another thing about him, feeling like their connection was only that much stronger because of it. Yet in spite of the hollow his absence had left and the way his reminder should have galvanized her mind, she was completely lost in the aura of the IceHeart, and his image was lost to the pleasant haze just as quickly as anything else.

"The IceHeart is your magic. It's as much a part of you as your real heart. Why should you ever fear your own heart?" Lind purred.

Elsa's eyes remained closed. She stood as if she were basking in sunlight, accepting anything the IceHeart had to offer. Where her magic usually felt like an ocean just beneath her skin, sometimes raging out of control and sloshing her around at a whim, before the IceHeart she felt the waves subside and lay still. It was a peaceful, intoxicating feeling.

"For the first time, I'm not afraid. It feels like I can control it completely. I can't remember the last time I felt like this," she whispered.

Lind was watching her with a great smile on her face, trying desperately to not interrupt her worship. Although she was perfectly poised to get everything she wanted, now was the most desperate time for her, when she had to hone her patience to a razor's edge.

She knew what she was about to say was going to decide two decades of planning, and a century of solitude.

"How would you like to feel this way forever?"

Elsa's eyes slowly opened. The serenity of the IceHeart was still singing to her and she fought to focus through the haze in her mind, but she could instantly tell that this was why Lind had summoned her. The gravity of the moment was heavily upon her.

"What does that mean?" she gasped.

Not wasting a moment, Lind turned and took her hands again, holding her tightly before her and gazing powerfully into her eyes. "I want you to enter the IceHeart, Elsa," she explained, watching as it sent a wave of fear and repulsion through her. Lind was quick to disperse it. "I understand your reservations. Your experience with the FireHeart has made you wary and I don't blame you for it. You still suspect that this is part of some plan that would put you in the same place as that boy, but I can only ask you to believe me when I say that only when you enter the Heart, you'll understand everything. I mean truly understand, about me and about the magic."

Her reasoning had no catchy tricks and no poetic words. There wasn't the same layered scheme that Nazir had played out over the course of generations. There was only the simple look in Lind's eyes, eyes that glowed the same as Elsa's, and the strangely hypnotic reason for wanting to end countless years of solitude. By pedigree, Lind was already precious to Elsa, even as they had only just met. Through her possessions and her presence, she had appeared honest in all that she did, in opposition to Nazir's lies. Had she proposed to her only a short time before, when she had tried to escape her life of closed doors and left her kingdom frozen, there might have been no hesitation, but as she stood there now, so much more than she was before, even with the imperious IceHeart lording over her, she couldn't simply give herself away.

Now, she had too many things precious for outright surrender.

"I don't think you're lying, Lind, but something about this feels…" she began, though found herself unable to push through her conflicting heart.

Lind instantly picked up on it. "Frightening? Uncertain? All of worthwhile things in life are. How did you feel when you first started feeling the magic? How did it feel when you ran away from your life and stood unbridled on top of your mountain?" she crooned, making sure to keep a firm grip on her hands.

The questions made Elsa's anxiety waver. A smile fought to surface on her lips. "My heart was racing. My knees felt weak. I was so scared, but also happy," she replied, feeling those lost images of those she cared about fighting up through the haze and threatening to shatter her trance.

"It's the same as when I opened my door to Anna again. It's like when I realized I had fallen in love with Yasha."

The shift in subject dimmed Lind's expression slightly, for those were things she didn't need in her overtures. She didn't want to share her with anyone. As much as she knew the power of the IceHeart, watching Elsa waver in the depths of her memories made her desperate to push her these final few steps into the place where they would no longer matter. She knew as long as she got her into the Heart, nothing else would matter.

"Elsa," she said, squeezing her hands again and putting her most passionate pleas out before her, "My only desire is for you to understand me like no one else can, and to be here with me so I won't be alone. I'm not asking that you answer now. You can only make this decision after you've experienced the Heart and fully mastered its power. After you've seen what I have to offer, what the IceHeart has to offer, I will abide by any choice you make, even if that choice is to once more return back to your kingdom."

"All I ask is that you give me this chance to not be alone forever."

The impassioned plea made Elsa's chest burn. It was like looking into her own eyes and trying to save herself from the mistake she nearly made before, when it had almost cost her the life of her sister to prove that people didn't have to be alone and that love could defeat solitude. A part of her appreciated this chance to do as her sister had, to help someone who had been alone for so long. It was no lie that she was afraid, for she couldn't shake off the memories of Nazir, but that seemed like a lifetime ago and she saw none of the same treachery in Lind.

Taking a shaky breath, she looked from her and into the IceHeart, not able to fully mask her apprehension. "What will happen once I go in there?"

Lind smiled. "Only something wonderful," she replied, then finally released her grip, letting Elsa take a few slow steps forward, even as she looked back for support.

Lind said nothing more, but clasped her hands at her waist and watched as her child finally stepped up to the IceHeart, searching every inch of it for the fate it would provide. It was beautiful and terrifying, and she slowly reached out, hoping for some new revelation by touching it as her fingers drifted against the molten, icy surface.

Instantly, Elsa disappeared in a cloud of icy dust, only to appear inside the IceHeart, curled up as if she were in a womb, her face completely relaxed and her eyes closed. The surface of the orb slowly ground to a noisy halt and became a shell around her, sealing her away in her cocoon to fulfill the depth of Lind's plan. With a soft laugh, the doll placed her icy fingers over her blue lips, staring at Elsa's face with a profuse glow in her eyes. She could barely contain her joy at the victory she had achieved. Its role fulfilled, the doll suddenly turned white, returning to the ice that made it and lingering only as an afterthought of Lind's power. The throne room became deathly quiet and cold, set to entomb Elsa's destiny within the orb of ancient ice. Lind was obviously confident in the Heart's grasp on Elsa, for she left them both alone, her two most prized possessions.

Silence dominated the room until a foreign sound invaded, echoing loudly across the frozen floor in focused, rhythmic percussion. In contrast to the white and blue of the castle, a black shadow walked, heavy boots thundering loudly and a clouds of vapor hissing from under a black hood. Coming to a stop next to the lifeless doll, a clawed hand reached out and grasped its head, tearing it from the rest of the body and holding it out for scrutiny. After exhaling a heated breath, the shadow then crushed the icy head, making it fall to pieces to the floor, then straightened, staring once more at the cocoon. A few more steps brought it to the skin of the orb, where the same clawed hand reached out and caressed the ice, trying quietly to get at the serene figure inside. A heavy breath rippled through the dark form and it clawed its hand closed, making deep scratches in the ice, then hung its head forward, bowing before the weight of a thousand difficult decisions.

There it would linger, soaked with regret and longing, as if those two things would somehow break through the impenetrable ice between them, as much her villain as he had ever been before.


	5. Blocked by Ice

**V**

Blocked by Ice

In the vast fields of Lapland, where the snow covered everything in bleak whiteness, a small group of color came sliding across the snow, invading the sterile landscape with banter and purpose. Kristoff's sled was filled with the voices of Olaf and Sid, sounding off as love and annoyance, while the rest of the party had been otherwise quiet in lieu of the task ahead of them. Johann rode ahead, keeping a watchful eye out for dangers, while Anna had been shifting in every position possible, trying to relieve her aching body from the burden of sitting so long.

Idly, she remembered this being easier the first time.

The journey had been relatively calm, aside from a few encounters with travelers and a few wild animals that were scared off by their vigilant guard. Kristoff was happy to Johann around, in spite of his sordid history, for it was much easier to keep an eye on his pregnant wife, even if all of his concerns were met with angry glares and sharp complaints.

Idly, he also remembered this being easier the first time.

"Whoa," Johann called as he reined back his horse, letting his green eyes fall over the landscape and seeing the vague outline of a castle in the distance. There was a haze in the air, but not an unending blizzard as promised. It drew his lips tightly into a frown. At his side, the sled came to a stop, with Sven panting from the pull and Anna eager to finally get a break from sitting.

Using the last momentum of the stopping sled, she stood, leaning her hands heavily onto the front rail and throwing her hands at the distinct lack of wind and falling snow.

"Okay, so where's the big storm?" she demanded.

Kristoff was still seated, scratching his hair under his hat. "I dunno, but that's one big castle," he remarked, trying to take in the details of the distant structure but onto able to see the ice, stone and haze. "Lapland is a legend, a kingdom that disappeared a hundred year ago behind an endless blizzard. No one knows what happened to it, only that anyone that tried to get through never came back."

"And yet, here it is before us, open and clear," Johann added, settling heavily in his saddle and resting his hand across his sword. "I don't like this at all."

While Anna shared that sentiment, she was staring at the castle without the legends and mystery in her mind. Spending long hours in the sled had given her more time than she wanted to think about Elsa's behavior. The carnage in Arendelle was still on her mind, as was the looks of concern on the faces of the people, but what lingered most strongly was Elsa's expression as she sat in her room, distantly staring into the distance, as if this is where she had been looking all along. An ominous castle in the distance was exactly what she wanted to find, along with an ominous villain that she could blame for her sister's actions. More than she would admit, she wanted to dash to the castle and uncover all of the dark secrets there, even though the danger still made her heart beat faster in her chest.

"Elsa went there. I know it," she said, nodding at her own prediction, "So we're going too."

Johann's gaze was drawn from the distant fortress, for he was taken with how confident the often aloof princess was. It brought a smile to his face. "As you command, Princess," he replied loyally, then urged his horse forward to take point again.

Kristoff's response was less vocal, instead merely spurring Sven on to follow after him.

As they drew ever closer to the castle, with the strangely scenic weather at odds with the biting cold and the anxiety in the air, their two magical companions were suddenly seized by a strange sensation, making them both grunt loudly and fall dangerously close to one another. Olaf was rubbing his twigs across his head, his usual happy demeanor shattered, while Sid landed on the rail of the sled, where she began to scorch the wood with her fiery body.

Seeing the smoke, Kristoff pulled the sled to a stop and whirled around, grabbing his head in a flight of panic. "But I just had a new finish put on!" he cried.

Anna smirked at his reaction, then looked between the two, wondering what would have affected them both in such a way. "Are you guys all right?" she asked, looking worriedly at Olaf.

"I suddenly don't feel so good," he sighed.

"This place gives me the creeps," Sid added, finally lifting back into the air but appearing much dimmer than she had been before, "It's like there really is a storm here. Not even the snow hussy's magic is this noisy."

Olaf suddenly smirked, giving the sprite an unusually harsh glance. "Like emo prince is any better. Just being around you makes my ears hurt…if I had ears."

The snowman's unnatural response made Anna flinch, trying to remember if he had ever talked like that about Sid or Yasha before. Thinking back on it, she wasn't sure he had ever talked like that about anything before. "Wait, what did you just say?" she began, when something suddenly flew in her face, making her shriek and lean back against the front rail of the sled, clutching it tightly and her eyes wide.

"Whoa snowflake!"

Inches from her nose was a massive snowflake, spinning slowly as if it were inspecting her. She had never seen anything so strange and felt her back twinge as she stretched painfully. Kristoff was staring as well, completely taken. As an aficionado of winter, the sight of it made his mouth hang widely open in awe.

"That's the second biggest snowflake I've ever seen," he whispered.

By now, Anna was feeling less alarmed and more infatuated with it. In the sunlight, a spectrum of light cast colors in every direction, sparkling like a prism and feeling strangely hypnotic. Despite her anxiety, she strangely wanted to reach out and touch it. "It's so pretty. Look at all of the colors. It's a little big to catch on the tongue, though," she remarked, laughing slightly. As if reacting to the suggestion, the snowflake suddenly lurched forward, making her cry out again and hold her hands up in defense. "Okay! Nice snowflake. We're all friends here. I was just kidding about the tongue thing."

While they were all smitten, Johann was watching it intently, feeling unnerved by its proximity to her. "I'm not sure I like its manners," he grumbled, his hand gripped tightly around the hilt of his sword.

"You're offended by a snowflake's manners? You really need to get out more, Johann," she replied, slowly weaving her body around, but finding it followed her every move.

While the encounter was extraordinary and stalled them in the open fields, other snowflakes of varying sizes came fluttering down from the gray sky, surrounding them with a dazzling light show and a barely audible whine of acoustics in the wind. The number made Johann instantly on edge and he tried to maneuver his horse around, though found there was nowhere to meet the front of them.

They were simply everywhere.

"Okay, it has friends. Lots of friends," Kristoff remarked, trying to shoo the one closest to Anna away.

It continued to scrutinize her, moving more and more aggressively, until even she no longer felt amused by it and continued to lean further back, a grimace on her face. Johann's anxiety grew. "I really think you need to step back, Princess," he growled, pulling his sword free and moving closer to the sled, "These creatures aren't natural."

"Sort of trying here," she grunted through clenched teeth, "I don't really bend like I used to."

As if sensing her mood, the snowflake suddenly pulled back and began to spin quickly, appearing more like a disc than a flake, then darted through the air, where only Kristoff's quick hands saved her from a more pointed introduction. The spinning saw of ice instead cut cleanly through the front of the sled, splintering wood and shredding leather, revealing that their visitors weren't as benign as they appeared.

"Are you okay, Anna?" Kristoff cried, holding her tightly.

"Definitely not natural!" she chirped as she held him back, looking around wildly as the rest of the flakes began to spin as well, surrounding them with a field of lethal discs ready to cut them to bits. Kristoff quickly reached out and grabbed the reins, but found they hung limp in his gloved hand. Sven was free of the sled and backing anxiously near them, while the mountain man threw the shredded reins aside and instead grabbed a pair of ice axes, holding them out in an attempt to ward off their attackers.

The first that came sailing in again went straight for Anna again, yet was met by an armored sleeve of metal, with Johann taking the full brunt of the strike. Still mounted on his horse, he scowled as the disc tried to cut through him instead of shattering as he would expect, once more betraying the extraordinary nature of these frigid guardians. "They're as sharp as steel! Don't let them near you!" he hollered, pushing the disc back and then slashing it with his sword. A loud note wailed into the air and the disc momentarily stopped spinning, showing that he had fractured several of the intricate splines of ice, yet hadn't shattered it completely.

At the very least, he knew they could be broken.

With the sled now useless, the others were forced to defend themselves from the onslaught, jumping down onto the snowy ground to give themselves more room to maneuver. As he moved to Anna's side, Johann had already considered grabbing her and escaping on his horse, though he knew that might endanger her child, so he instead took a position as her vanguard, warding off the icy discs with his sword and his armored sleeve, while Kristoff acted as her last line of defense, holding his ice axes tightly. They were keenly aware of the attention on Anna, but it only meant they knew exactly what they had to protect and where to focus their efforts.

On the other side of the sled, Olaf was backing away from another of the discs, trying to ward it off with his twiggy hands and nervous smile. "Nice snowflake. Nice snowflake," he chanted, then shrieked as it sailed through the air at him, slicing cleaning through his neck and sending his head up into the air, where it then landed right back in place, albeit backwards. "Well, that wasn't so bad."

As if responding to his casual beheading and response, several more discs came flying in and cut the snowman to pieces, which then fell to the snowy ground, but still moved with the magic that made him be.

"Touché," he called with a raised finger.

While Olaf was at a stalemate with his icy cousins, Sid wasn't nearly as calm. The elementals chased her through the air, presenting a far more dangerous foe to a sprite born of fire magic. She was obviously annoyed by their attention "Get away from me, stupid snowflakes!" she cried, darting up to dodge one and then come crashing down on it, sending her raging foot into its center and shattering it into a spray of sparkles and ice. Where they were just as dangerous to her, she discovered that she was just as much a weakness to them and lorded proudly over the shower of dusty ice, stabbing her hands onto her hips. "Hah! That'll teach you to mess with me! I won't be bullied by a bunch of stupid…" she cheered, then suddenly shrieked loudly and sped away from her vanquished foe, followed closely by an entire squadron of buzzing ice saws.

Near the sled, Kristoff succeeded in warding off another disc, though his hands had gone numb from constant exchanges with them. He was panting and sweating, but he could hear Anna doing the same, and he knew this was no time to let down his guard. He had way too much to lose by letting them get to her.

"This isn't good," he panted, crossing his axes in front of him and making sure to keep her close.

Anna was out of breath and staring wildly around, though a sudden torrent of sound made her and Kristoff both look to Johann, who was engaged with more of the attackers than seemed possible. In a fit of agility, he was simultaneously blocking attacks with his sleeve and parrying with his sword, moving with extremely precise footwork to avoid being torn to pieces, while still delivering blows that shattered parts of the discs, and sometimes ones entirely. Watching him move was incredible, for they never truly appreciated his martial prowess until then, though they knew he was skilled enough to be a certified captain of the Royal Guard and widely considered Yasha's rival in battle. He wasn't as fast or passionate in his strikes, but he wasted nothing in his movements, applying all force with surgical precision, a product of a lifetime of studying with the finest instructors. Coupled with the quality of his armor and his sword, he was holding off a majority of the discs on his own, even if they could tell it was starting to tire him greatly.

Panting and wiping the sweat from his chin, he cursed his choice not to bring more men. He had done it at Anna's command, yet it meant nothing if he alone couldn't protect her. By now, the discs were congregating around him more than her, and he wondered if they recognized him as a greater threat. With a glance over to Anna and Kristoff, he realized that he could use that to his advantage.

Suddenly, he struck his sword loudly against his sleeve, sending a pitched whine into the air. At the same time he began backing away from the others, in stark contrast to his duty of protecting them. "Take the princess and go!" he called to Kristoff loudly, once more striking his sword across the sleeve, "I'll draw them away."

Instantly, Anna caught wind of what he was trying to do and flared, arching around Kristoff to yell at him. "No one's drawing anything away! If you get yourself killed out here, I won't tell anyone about these heorics, Johann! Especially Elsa!" she cried, not wanting anyone to be sacrificed in order to let her go on.

The insinuation that he would give up his life just to impress Elsa made him smirk, even if the idea did find a place in the back of his mind. Picturing her weeping over his noble body wasn't such a bad image. "That's not high on my list of priorities, Princess!" he called back, still trying to attract the enemy's attention.

Anna bristled at his stubbornness. "Too much Yasha again! He's infecting your brain or something!" she shouted, though this time he didn't seem to hear her and continued his death walk.

Feeling her heart racing, she looked to Kristoff, objections hot on her lips, though she could instantly tell by his expression that she wouldn't get his support. He watched Johann quietly, willing to let him go as long as it kept her safe. That only made her angrier, but she knew it was pointless to force him to choose between a villain who swore to protect her with his life, and the wife that carried his child.

Cawing at the stubbornness of men, she looked around for some other way to get them out of the situation. Johann had proved the snowflakes could be defeated, but there were just too many of them to contend with. As if answering her plight, a streak of orange went sailing through the air in front of her, then suddenly stopped and dodged a wave of discs as they went by, kicking one and breaking it to pieces almost effortlessly. The light then flared angrily at their dogged pursuit of her. "I said stay away! Are you that stupid or something!" Sid screamed, still caught up in her tantrum and completely oblivious to Anna's presence.

"They're weak against fire," Anna whispered, more to herself than anything, then suddenly felt an overwhelming wash of hope and threw her finger towards the sprite. "You're the knight in shining armor, Sid! Let 'em have it!"

Sid looked to her in surprise, then flared even more. "Who do you think you are? I don't take orders from the bait!" she screamed back.

"Who do I think I am? Why you little…" Anna growled, wishing she could strangle the sprite without burning her hands. Even in the direst situations, she showed a blatant lack of concern for anyone other than Yasha. It made it almost impossible for even Anna to warm up to her. "If you don't stop these things right now, I'll make sure Yasha hears about it! What do you think he'd do if he found out you let us get diced up into little pieces?"

Sid flinched. "Ugh, he'd never speak to me again," she worried, wilting at the very thought. If there was one thing in the world she feared, it was being on his bad side. "Fine! But you owe me, bait! Big time!" she said, then took the offensive against the discs.

Her small form began sailing through the air, breaking through the snowflakes in the center, where it was furthest away from their razor edges. Despite how tenacious they had been, the snowflakes were defenseless against the sprite, who cut through them like an angry, orange streak of light, while filling the air with a spread of rambling curses. Soon, their overwhelming enemy were nothing more than scattering fodder, just waiting their turn to be victimized by the grumbling sprite, even as Sid seemed far more annoyed by her role than proud.

"Wow, look at her go," Kristoff said, lowering his axes to his sides.

"Yeah," Anna agreed, placing her hands on her hips and smiling impishly, "I guess I know how to bribe her now."

After being properly motivated, Sid made short work of the snowflakes, leaving nothing but a layer of chromatic dust on the snowy fields around them. Johann had rejoined them, surprised to receive help from an unlikely source, while Anna was leaning over the sprite, a perverse smile on her face for getting her to help. Sid was obviously annoyed by her expression, but laid out over a rock, the melting snow and ice running off around her.

"Ugh, I'm exhausted," she wheezed.

"There, see? That wasn't so hard," Anna remarked.

Struggling to sit up, the sprite glowered at her. "Look, I'm not making a habit out of this. You think I like crashing through a bunch of stupid, oversized snowflakes? That was worse than being chased around by this oaf all the time!" she complained, throwing a burning finger towards Olaf, who was also lingering nearby with a lovelorn look in his eyes.

"Who would chase an annoying bug like you around?" he asked, looking over her lovingly. Both Sid and Anna stared, not sure they had heard him right. The look on his face was at complete odds with his words, making a strange silence linger in the air for a moment.

"What did you just say?" Anna asked.

Olaf looked confused. "Huh? I said that my little fire angel looked so beautiful saving the day like that," he said, wondering why he had to repeat it but willing to always spout his affection for the sprite. He held his twigs out in the hopes she would finally give in and grant him a warm, possibly lethal hug. "My hero."

"That's not what you said!" Sid yelled, floating up into the air and glaring angrily.

"Are you feeling okay?" Anna asked, bending over and placing her gloved hand at his forehead. He laughed sheepishly at her action and she couldn't help but laugh as well. "Oh, well I guess you wouldn't have a fever or anything. It would sort of melt you."

Seeing their concerns as nothing more than the stress of dealing with the snowflakes, Olaf waved them off and took Anna's hand, then tried to do the same with Sid but found his twig started to smolder and smoke when it went near her. Chuckling, he tried a couple more times, then decided it was best to spare his hand the fiery fate that it met with his persistence. "You both seem like you're a little on edge. Why don't you rest while I find you some hot chocolate," he suggested, leading them back towards the sled.

Sid was obviously still put off by his strange mood and harsh words. "Where would you find something like that out here?!" she cried incredulously.

"Love makes anything possible," he replied, and it was met with a loud groan of exhaustion from the sprite.

Aside from the celebration of Sid's victory, Kristoff and Johann were standing over the remnants of the snowflakes, still marveling that something so beautiful could be so deadly. They also understood that whoever was in the castle, they weren't welcoming them with open arms. "Who knew ice could move like that? Between these and the storm, it's no wonder no one's seen Lapland for so long," Kristoff remarked, pushing the toe of his shoe through the dust.

"Indeed. I doubt many have ever lived to tell the tales of these monstrosities," Johann replied, looking over the condition of his armored sleeve and making note of how even ice could cut deeply into steel.

"Those were some pretty fancy moves. I guess that thing's not just for show, huh?" Kristoff remarked, quietly wishing he could use a sword like that.

Johann smirked, letting his sleeve fall to his side. "Hardly," he replied, politely dismissing the idea and that even his desperate struggle against the snowflakes was nothing more than a brisk exercise out in the open air. "And compared to a match with Baron Yasha, those creatures were child's play."

"Right. Heroes through and through, huh?" Kristoff replied, looking back down to the dust and frowning slightly, not needing any more reminders of how fantastic the infamous prince of Fria was. While he had recently come to a strange sort of truce with him, there were always buried feelings of envy and anger that surfaced when he least expected them.

After admiring Johann for his skill and bravery, it was bitter to hear how much the expert swordsman admired Yasha.

Johann picked up on his turning mood, though he had no idea the source of it. Instead of pressing the matter, he decided that it was none of his business and that he didn't deserve to ask. He was merely the guard, tasked in making sure they would arrive safely at their destination

"We should move along, my prince," he suggested.

Kristoff's face soured. "Hang on," he sighed, rubbing his eyes roughly with his gloved hand, "Do you have to keep calling me that? I'm not exactly prince material, you know."

"You're married to the princess. You've fathered the next line in the royal family," Johann replied, though a slightly amused expression tugged at his lips and he let himself have a bit of fun.

"It's the only appropriate way to call you, _Prince _Kristoff."

Kristoff glowered. "Okay, now you're doing it on purpose."

While keeping his polite posture, Johann fought the grin at his face and turned to walk back to the sled and find out what the princess wanted to do next. Before they could, however, Olaf's frightened voice called out over the frigid air, sending a wave of alarm through them both.

"Hey guys! I think something's wrong with Anna!" the snowman cried.

Both men looked to one another and then burst into a staggering run, quickly coming up to find Anna laying in the snow, her face twisted and her eyes closed. Kristoff instantly fell to her side and lifted her head into his lap, looking in a panic between her, Olaf and Sid.

"What happened? Is it the baby?" he gasped, his hand instinctively placed over her stomach.

"She just collapsed," Olaf replied, looking on worriedly.

Kristoff shivered and tore his glove from his hand with his teeth, then tenderly reached up and touched her cheek, which he found was as cold as ice. It made his panic grow. "Anna? Anna?" he called, trying to figure out what to do but was completely lost in fear and worry. He dismissed the cold as the reason, for she didn't have any of the common signs that came with hypothermia. Her skin color was good. Her heart rate seemed okay. The only things amiss were her frigid temperature and the look of pain on her face.

Those two things were enough to send him into a fit of despair.

Even before the despair could fully settle over him, Kristoff suddenly heard a grunt from behind him, then the sounds of another body falling into the snow. Looking back, he found Johann had also collapsed, his lethal sword and sleeve useless and his face showing the same twisted expression that plagued Anna. Now he knew the sleep wasn't natural and he opened his mouth to voice his confusion when a sharp pain shot through his neck, like someone was injecting liquid ice into his blood. Instinctively, he slapped his hand across the pain and felt something there, which he grabbed and presented before him. In his bare hand was a small, bluish bee, though didn't look like any bee he had seen before. The icy sensation at his fingers told him this was yet another creature of ice, and it slowly rolled over in his hand, buzzing quietly and seeming completely harmless.

"What in the world…" he began, yet felt an overwhelming wave of sleepiness wash over him as the bee, his hand and everything else was covered in a cold, liquid fog.

As Kristoff fell back into the snow, still holding Anna and succumbing to the same slumber, Olaf flailed about, running to his side and trying to figure out what was going on. "Kristoff! Bad Guy! Oh, not good! Not good!" he cried, dancing in a panic and wondering how he could help his friends.

True to form, Sid's reaction was a far cry from panic. She appeared more annoyed than anything else. "The castle's right there! Why is everyone suddenly napping?" she snorted, floating down next to them.

Olaf smirked calmly, talking down to her as the strange animosity once more flared in his voice. "If you're not going to be helpful, just go on alone. No one needs your negativity anyway."

"There you go again!" she cried, huffing angrily and now trying to figure what was going on as well.

"What's wrong with everyone?!"


	6. Nexus of Fate

**VI**

Nexus of Fate

In the silence of the great hall, the lone shadow was standing before the quiet IceHeart. The ghostly form of Elsa was visible inside, frozen in her cocoon, her face tranquil in spite of her predicament. The shadow was equally silent, its ashen mask hiding all emotion the same. Wrapped in a long, black coat against the cold and a black hood hung low across the mask, it appeared much like a demon, while two gloved hands were clawed out at its sides, a betrayal of the anxiety that surged through him. Powerful breaths of vapor came from its grated maw and two eyes gazed deeply from within, chained to her face and her angelic form.

As it had been for hours, the shadow stood there, motionless and in great turmoil.

"And here you are," said a soft voice, followed by Lind, who appeared in the hall with her eyes on the figure. Her bare feet swept softly over the frosted floor as she stalked the shadow, giving it a wide berth but also her full attention.

Instantly, she could feel the tension ignite the frigid air and watched as the shadow's posture tightened, coupled with a terse, grumbling breath that came from within.

Quietly, she reveled in how she could provoke such reactions.

"To be honest, I'm impressed you were able to stay away this long, given how desperately you wanted to see her. I wasn't really sure if you'd live up to your side of the bargain. Yet even as she lay right before you and called out your name, you did everything I commanded," she remarked, keeping her distance but making sure to remind him of where he stood.

"What a good boy you are."

The shadow quivered, yet remained in place. Lind made no attempt to hide that fact that she found him alluring, running her eyes over the furious form that not even the coat could hide. Underneath the leather and steel, a fierce child burned in defiance of the chill of her realm, perhaps the only other person capable of steadily resisting the cold besides herself and Elsa, all while acting in complete contradiction to his own desires, serving someone he reviled to give away the thing he cherished most. He was an enigma to her, and she was fascinated by his layers.

Almost as much as she enjoyed her dangerous lust for him, she enjoyed playing games with his raging heart.

Cautiously, but with great interest, she began to circle the IceHeart from the other side, moving slowly, but never letting her eyes leave him. As long as she had this lull in the storm, she would use the time to stoke him up just a little more. "How does it feel to be this close? To see my Heart right before your eyes? I imagine it's torture for you, to have the voice raging, and feel the things you feel for the treasure inside," she sang, watching him for every reaction, "The FireHeart and the IceHeart are destined to repel each other, and you should now know how she felt when you took her to the volcano, lying with every breath, never sure whether or not you'd try and kill her again. And yet, at the same time, you began to desire her, longing for her attention and hoping she felt the same. Did you ever stop and consider what a wicked thing it was, knowing you'd eventually betray her for your own cause?"

She waited for some kind of reaction, especially as she began to dig into their shared past and thinking of things from days long departed. As he continued to deny her advances with his silence, she started to lose her levity and fell into the dark emotions that were sneaking up on her.

"Does it hurt? Does it make your blood boil? I once knew a man who was the same way, who felt the same things you feel," she growled, glaring harshly for an answer.

"In the end, he couldn't conquer his Heart. What makes you think you can?"

By now, her expression had soured. His presence disturbed her, but also enchanted her. His blood resonated with her heart just as his power resonated with her Heart, making it impossible to ignore him, even when he had already performed his task. Even now, she had no idea what she expected by letting him stay and have free run of her realm, though she was also sure she couldn't simply kill him or drive him away. Ironically, she now stood in the same place as her ancient partner, needing the power of her child to defend her Heart.

Yet she desperately wanted to hear his answer, even when she had asked so carelessly.

"I love her," he replied, after a long silence.

The words shattered her composure. She didn't find his response attractive at all. "Love? That's your plan?" she scoffed, scowling as she came closer, feeling a strange burning within her frozen chest. "That man had love too. He swore it as deeply as you do now. It didn't stop him from throwing everything away, and betraying those he swore to love. And you share his Heart, and his blood. Why are you any different? Why won't you do the same?"

She continued to push him, wanting him to play the part and fulfill her expectations. She demanded that he betray love, if only for precedent. For as many years as she spent frozen in the silent snow and ice, she wanted to hear that the world was the same place as it always was, and that the heart of men would always be as wicked as they ever had been.

And more than anything, she wanted to end his influence over Elsa.

The shadow finally looked away from the IceHeart and his fierce stare halted her stalking approach. Deep within the masked darkness, two eyes were alight with an orange glow and clouds of vapor came out in cumulus spears of steam. His posture betrayed how mutual their desires were, for it appeared as if he would turn his wrath on her at any moment, regardless of the consequence. She knew it was a dangerous game she played, and that even though she was immortal, he had the power and the resolve to harm her, as well as the capacity to take away her greatest treasure. This man was singularly the most dangerous thing in her world, yet she couldn't stop herself from going near him, despite the way his gaze disturbed her.

Secretly, she wondered if it were the reason she began to share Elsa's infatuation in him.

The tension between them lay heavily over the hall, their duel played out before the serene expression of Elsa, until he finally hissed an angry breath and disappeared into a swirl of flame, leaving her an empty victory over the territory around her Heart.

Lind sighed.

Looking back to the IceHeart and her child within, she frowned as she wrapped her arms around her, not at all feeling happy with his retreat. She knew that sooner or later she would have to deal with him, and that it would be Elsa that would decide the ultimate resolution between the two Hearts. She wasn't oblivious of the bond they shared, but could only believe in her design, where the voice of the IceHeart would be too powerful for even something as fragile as love.

Feeling Elsa deep within her Heart, she resolved to believe that their connection was more powerful than anything else in the world.

"I won't let you suffer the same fate, my precious Elsa. Our story will be different. We don't need anyone else, as long as we have each other," she whispered, stepping forward and placing her hand across the ice, wanting nothing more than to feel the warmth of her touch again. "In the end, I'll make sure that no one ever hurts you like that, and that you stay here with me. I'm the only one that can protect you from that pain. We'll bury ourselves in walls of ice, and spend every wonderful moment in each other's arms."

"Forever."


	7. Secrets Revealed

**VII**

Secrets Revealed

Deep within a place of fog and shadow, Elsa opened her eyes. What lay before her was an unending world of gray, with a chill that touched her skin but didn't make her shiver. She was completely nude, which surprised her at first, yet then didn't seem so offensive, as there didn't seem to be another soul in sight. Despite that, she still ran her hands over her exposed skin as she looked around, if only because of instinct. Her feet felt like they were submerged in water, yet there was nothing there, while the sounds of her breathing were taken by the fog and carried away, giving the place a ghostly silence that only gave rise to the thundering heartbeat in her ears. She couldn't quite remember where she was or how she got there, but her memories started to return, of Lind and her castle.

As the last thing she remembered was reaching out to touch the IceHeart, she assumed she was now inside, though it was nothing like she expected.

"Hello?" she called, with no answer coming back.

She walked about, yet went nowhere. The senselessness of it frustrated her. If there were some grand design for her or a great secret to be told, it escaped her completely, making her wonder just what she had to do next.

Then someone appeared.

"Lind?" Elsa gasped, though was shocked by her appearance. While naked as well, her body had a doll-like appearance and the strangest color across her skin. Instead of her radiant head of blonde hair, it was black, while her eyes had no shades of beautiful blue. Instead, they were bleached white, giving her a terrifying appearance, which was coupled by an unemotional gaze and a frigid posture.

For a moment, she was frightened of this apparition before her.

"Yes, and no," the apparition said, her voice the only thing that echoed in the fog, "I'm not Lind, but I'm of Lind. Maybe it's best to say I'm a fragment, lodged here forever, in the depths of her eternal magic."

Elsa panted a few times, holding her hand across her chest as she tried to understand what that meant and what was standing before her. She had no idea what would happen in the IceHeart and the apprehension surrounding the ghastly figure bothered her when she suddenly started to see flashes of shadows in the fog, as if something else were lurking just beyond. Her anxiety rose further, until the shadows focused into images of people and places, moving around her as if she were part of them, yet feeling as ghostly and distant as the figure that stood before her. Twirling within them, she watched the various tales unfold around her, mostly of trivial things such as moving through a village or walking through the countryside. It was strange to linger among groups of people in the nude, yet she felt an overwhelming sense of desire to watch them, far outweighing her feelings of modesty.

"What is this place? What am I seeing?" she asked, moving defensively around people as they walked near her.

"Memories of the past," the fragment replied.

Elsa's brow furrowed and she tried to understand. This wasn't at all what she expected when she entered the IceHeart, nor could she figure out why it would be showing her images from the past. Suddenly, a familiar face appeared and she gasped, finding a young girl with light hair walking through a busy village, carrying a basket with various flowers in it. She didn't know why, but she instantly recognized her.

"Is that Lind?" she asked, though the fragment was silent. She found that strange, but continued to watch as the scenery changed from the young Lind in the village to an older girl holding the same basket, though it was now filled with snow and weighted with icicles. The village was now a dark, frozen place, with countless angry faces screaming, including a man and a woman who stood off to the side, looking on with terrified expressions. The villagers were then throwing rocks and anything else they could find, and the young girl cried out to the man and woman, though they didn't move to help her.

In the end, she turned and ran from the village, leaving the basket in the mud, where the images then faded away into the fog once more.

Breathing shakily, Elsa realized this was Lind's past and the beginning of her life of isolation. It resonated powerfully with her, as this had been similar to the visions she saw among the trolls, when she had accidentally hurt Anna with her magic as a child. While her story had turned out different due to the love of her family, it was obvious Lind hadn't enjoyed such benefits, and suffered the fate that had terrified Elsa her entire life.

Before she could speak again, more images appeared, with the young girl now older, alone and walking through the world. While young and beautiful, she was avoided by most that saw her, except for those that only wanted the darkest of things from her. Several times, violent images of ugly faces and dirty hands flared up, making the fog appear like storms, along with flashes of ice and magic, but always resulting the same. The most common element of these was the young girl sitting alone, growing colder with each passing day, until finally she seemed outside of the world around her, simply walking through with an empty hollow in her eyes.

Elsa felt herself crying. Her tears pooled where her hand was clasped across her lips and her shoulders shook with each sob. While she had always wanted to know more about Lind, this glimpse into her past overwhelmed her, making her wish she had never wanted to find out. As selfish as it was, she never wanted to know about such sorrow.

"Why are you showing me this?" she whispered through her shaking hand.

"I don't know. In this place, her will is law. Her thoughts are reality. I watch these things just as you do," the fragment replied, looking around at the progression of Lind's isolation, though showing none of the emotion Elsa suffered, "This is an intimate place for her. No one has ever come before you, so I can't tell you what will happen next. But these places are familiar, though I've never walked there. And there are faces I recognize, without ever seeing them at all."

Elsa wanted to look away, to spare herself of the sadness of Lind's past, yet she couldn't, as if it would betray this intimate place Lind had given her. These things were nurturing her sympathy for her, making her want to return to the room where she slept and embrace her, at least for an eternity.

As if her warm feelings molded the fog, suddenly there was a new image of Lind, though this time she didn't appear as sad as before. She looked to be Elsa's age and was talking to someone in a heated manner, though it was the only emotions she had displayed since her childhood, making Elsa wonder exactly who could draw such a response. Although she appeared annoyed, there was a strange sort of happiness in her eyes, as if the attention was exactly what her lonely heart wanted, in spite of her complaints.

Her change in demeanor began to disperse Elsa's tears.

"She looks so different now. Almost happy. What happened to her?" she asked, taking a few steps into the memory and looking around, as if she could discover its secrets.

The images continued to move, with Lind continually growing brighter, until she even began to smile again. Once more, she appeared like the carefree child of her past, walking backwards with her hands clasped behind her, talking to someone she obviously cared for. She laughed. She blushed. She even began to sing. Elsa couldn't help but smile as well, as Lind's happiness infectious, all while desperately wanting to know who had brought such warmth to Lind's life.

The secret was revealed as a young man appeared, strolling after her without restraint, his face obscured by perspective and his gestures as intimate as her own. Elsa instantly focused on him. "Who is that?" she asked, trying to arch to the side and see his face. This suitor to Lind's heart danced around the memories with great vigor, becoming the center of Lind's world, while Elsa bathed in the light of their flowering love, feeling almost jealous at how wonderful her story was becoming. With such a dark, cold beginning, the salvation of love was that much more powerful, and Elsa began to get ahead of herself, wondering what could have happened to them to turn Lind into the frozen immortal that rested alone in the silent castle of Lapland.

Then, as the playful Lind moved around the suitor, he finally came into view as he turned to follow, exposing his identity to Elsa's quickly widening eyes.

"Yasha!" she cried.

The young man before her was painfully familiar, with his dark hair and pale eyes, yet his mannerisms were distinctly different than the man Elsa had fallen in love with, for he smiled and danced around just as beautifully as Lind did, lacking all of the seriousness that the prince of Fria was known for. There were other more obvious differences, but that didn't distract Elsa's burning heart in the slightest and she suddenly raised her hands out to meet him, as both he and Lind strolled happily right through her and back into the fog.

"That man is not your beloved," the fragment said, watching as she collapsed her arms into herself and stared wildly into the fog. Once more, it showed no emotion to her aching heart. "These are memories of times long past, of stories told in the time of your ancestors. No, that is Lind's beloved, the one who she gave her heart to."

"His name was Alexei."

As more images of the two appeared, still wrapped up happily with each other, Elsa could only focus on him, this Alexei of Lind's heart. The resemblance was uncanny, and she moved closer, trying reach out and touch his smiling face. "He looks just like him," she whispered, finding that even seeing this doppelganger made her heart churn painfully and her lips to twist into a frown.

She suddenly wanted to see Yasha more than anything.

"That shouldn't be surprising," the fragment remarked, looking from the images and back to her, where it began to focus intently on her reaction. "In the endless years that came after these memories, he was overcome with change, no longer being the man that had thawed Lind's heart. He began to suffer the darkness in his own heart, until he was no longer the Alexei she loved."

"In time, he became the man you know as Nazir."

Elsa flinched, her hands drawing back from him. "Nazir?" she gasped, widely staring at him with a different look on her face. Her own memories flooded in. Even looking at this smiling image before her, she suddenly could only see the wicked king that stood by the golden throne in Fria, weaving a web of suffering for his people and condemning his own son to a life of misery, for reasons as pale as immortality and greed. It was like looking at a completely different person.

Seeing how much he brightened Lind's terrible life, she had a hard time believing the claim. "This is Yasha's father?"

"In days when he was just Alexei, He wasn't yet the wicked man you know. He and Lind lived simple lives together, the happiest of her life," the fragment continued as the images changed going to an isolated cottage on the shores of a tranquil lake. The images became warm and slow, with them doing all that affection demanded. She watched them eat and sleep together. Her face burned when they made love. She winced when their tempers flared. Part of her felt envious for their life, for it was so happy and angry and sad, yet they were always together, with not even the world coming between them. It was the perennial story of life and love, and it seemed to go on forever, with a strange spectrum of emotions taking over their spectator, until she had no idea how to feel at all.

"They were already gifted in strange magic, alone in the world, but Alexei had always wanted more. He had a thirst for revenge, for something that had happened before Lind knew him. That part of him always frightened her, but she vowed to stay by his side no matter the cost, because he loved her when no one else had loved her, and made her happier than she had ever been" the fragment explained, and the images followed the story perfectly, from Lind and Alexei showing their affinity for fire and ice to the reminiscent cruelty that sometimes flashed through Alexei's eyes.

Soon, the images changed tone once more, showing a place where ancient stones lie as rubble and shadows lingered just beyond. The pair stood before a powerful orb of magic, something more majestic than both of their Hearts, and a single mysterious figure speaking to them, though she couldn't hear anything at all. Elsa found herself captivated by the scene as the fragment's story went on. "Alexei's quest led them to an ancient place, where they were told of ancient magic. Alexei convinced Lind to turn their powers into something different, something immortal. They created the two Hearts, one of fire and one of ice," it explained.

"The FireHeart and the IceHeart," Elsa said, her eyes fixed on the master orb before her.

The fragment nodded. "But the two Hearts didn't beat the same. The Heart of fire burned only for vengeance and the Heart of ice was chained by fear," it continued, looking to the images as they then showed a greatly-changed Alexei, who now walked forcefully into the world and tried to bend it to his will. There were scenes of Lind crying out when swords and spears pierced him, yet he lived on and crushed those that opposed him. While not showing the same magic as before, he became powerful in his immortality, until even Lind's voice didn't seem to reach him.

Suddenly, an image showed of their cottage empty, with no sign of her beloved partner. Lind began to search frantically for him, in places both familiar and foreign to her. As the two shared the same immortality, Elsa couldn't tell if the images were of months or years, but each moment seemed to draw her back into her old self, when she was frozen against the world.

Finally, an image appeared of the castle in Lapland, though it was distinctly different than Elsa remembered. It was no longer frozen, but instead burned and was gripped in a panic, with people fleeing for their lives as a group of brigands rampaged through the kingdom. The image then faded into one that choked Elsa's breath in her throat, for in the throne room where the IceHeart now stood, there was the charred body of a king, hanging lifelessly in the throne. In the throne next to it, Alexei sat, his leg thrown up over the armrest and his hand holding a blackened head, with black blood running down his arm. He stared at it with such disdain that Elsa finally felt like she had seen Nazir, though the only thing that could terrify her more was what happened next, as Lind walked into the throne room.

"Lind watched the only person she had ever loved become someone else completely, and found that nothing she could do would bring him back. In the end, their conflicting natures drove them apart, forcing Lind and Alexei to face one another as enemies instead of lovers," the fragment explained, pointing out in perfect detail as Lind's passionate pleas were met with Alexei's apathy, and the two of them were forced to face one another, a battle of immortals at the twilight of their lives together. "Lind stopped Alexei, but couldn't bring herself to destroy his Heart, instead sealing away the kingdom he desired, with her deep inside, mourning the love she had lost."

"Deprived of everything but his Heart, Alexei fled to the volcano of Fria, where he took on the name of the king he had despised. He became Nazir, the tyrant that had always lived in his heart, and in time sired the child that would one day destroy him."

With the end of Lind's story, the images became something far more familiar to Elsa, as they showed the throne room in Fria, where Yasha and Elsa battled before her eyes, a strange perspective for a terrible moment in her life, until he finally fulfilled his destiny and shattered Nazir's FireHeart, then fell lifelessly into her waiting arms. While Elsa had moved in perfect unison to grab Yasha's body, only her past self caught her beloved prince, cradling him in sorrow, while the real Elsa tried to caress the face she had longed so much to see.

"Yasha," she whispered, grimacing at her inability to touch him.

The fragment watched her dramatics, showing no emotion, until the images suddenly swirled out of sight and left them in the fog once more. "Such is the history of Lind and Alexei, so closely relived by their children. That child has inherited his father's blood, and you have inherited Lind's will," it said, a murky glow appearing in its eyes.

"The circle closes, as you come to command the IceHeart, and he commands the FireHeart."

Elsa flinched, staring at her empty hands. It took her a moment to even decide if she had heard it right, but she slowly looked up to Lind's fragment, a tortured look of terror on her face. "What? Yasha doesn't command the FireHeart. The FireHeart was destroyed in Fria."

"Was it?" it replied, making her wince once more.

There was obvious doubt in her face, for both the claim and the truth. While there had been more than one instance where she suspected the true fate of the FireHeart, she had always believed that Yasha would never lie to her, especially about something so important. Yet as the fragment refused to retreat from the claim, she let her eyes fall with a gasp, wondering why she couldn't dismiss the claim outright. The fragment's eyes continued to glow. "Alexei's child took much from his father, including the willingness to do anything to achieve his aims, even to those he loves. You shouldn't look so surprised, as who else knows his heart as well as you do?"

"That's impossible," Elsa whispered, her face suffering her historic grimace and her hands clenched at her chest, "He wouldn't lie to me. He wouldn't hide this from me!"

The fragment's glow started to thin out the fog, revealing ghostly crystals of ice all around. The endless area became defined by the spherical lines of the ice and the fragment started to walk towards her, the glow now spreading out over its entire body. "Being one with the ancient magic, you no longer need to doubt it. It knows when its counterpart is near. They resonate as strongly as they repel," it said, looming behind her, its black hair spreading wildly in the glow.

"The FireHeart goes on, burning within the chest of your beloved prince."

Elsa was oblivious to the approach, instead crushed inwardly by the truth of Yasha's sins. For every day since he came back to life, he had lied to her, even as they had gone through hellfire together and endured the worst the world had to offer. Despite the countless times he had proven his love and the countless sacrifices he had made to be with her, he held tightly to this single lie, for reasons she couldn't even begin to understand. While only moments before she had suffered an unquenchable desire to see him again, she suddenly felt an overwhelming anger, if only because the simplest sin seemed to drag him right back to the same place when they had first met, that of a villain.

Her heart burning, she wondered how many more lies he had built between them.

"Why, Yasha? Why didn't you tell me?" she whimpered, staring at the place on her finger where her ring should have been.

"The legacy of the FireHeart is betrayal. It's better for you to know it now. No matter his noble heart, that man will become the father he despises. And you will pay the price, just as Lind did," the wraith-like fragment called, then slowly raised out its hand to her back, where the glow suddenly seized her and made her gasp painfully. The murky glow shook her from her tantrum and she slowly rose into the air, a puppet of its raised hand. Her body was presented, her eyes consumed by the same glow, as tears still ran down her cheeks.

The fragment watched coldly, keeping her completely trapped within the bounds of its power.

"I am sorry it has to be this way, but in the end I can only obey the will of my master. I must do all that she desires," it said, then slowly raised its arms out in reflection of Elsa's posture, slowly floating forward until it began to merge with her, seeping like icy dust all over her skin, until the two became one, with only the words echoing throughout the strands of ice that composed the deepest parts of the IceHeart.

"And what she desires above all else is you."


	8. Solitude, Doubt, Desire

**VIII**

Solitude, Doubt, Desire

As the blanket of sleep was pulled from Anna's mind, she suddenly found herself in her bed in Arendelle, finding all of the familiar things in her world coming into focus before her very confused eyes. Her hair was a tangled mess and her loose sleepwear was riding up in all of the wrong places. There was a funny stinging at her neck and she scratched at it. While her memory was hazy and she had trouble getting her bearings as she sat up, she was instantly aware that something was wrong, as if she were supposed to be somewhere doing something. Her hands were running over her stomach and her mind was awash with the possibilities, such as breakfast with her sister, a day with Kristoff or some annoying royal event, but nothing seemed to come into focus, even if she couldn't shake off the sense of urgency in her chest.

Deeply in her heart, she knew there was something she should be doing.

"Ugh, I don't remember drinking the fjord last night," she grumbled as she rose to her feet, running her fingers over her neatly constructed braids and checking her dress for any unwanted ruffles, then walked slowly towards the door, yawning as she tried to shake off the heaviness in her body. "I guess I need to go find out what I'm supposed to be doing."

Reaching out and grabbing the handle, her body suddenly rocked as she tried to pull it open, finding the door was stuck shut. She pulled a little harder and the door finally came free. Glaring at the jamb, she made a mental note to have someone look at it as she stalked out into quiet hallway, feeling a rush of cold air running over her skin and shivering. The corridors seemed darker than usual and she began to run her hands up her arms, amazed she could see her breath.

Quietly, she also made a note to tell the staff to keep the windows closed during winter.

Still groggy and feeling heavy, Anna wandered the halls, finding it strange there wasn't anyone around. Outside, the sun was shining brightly and the gardens were in full bloom, yet there weren't the usual sounds that permeated the air, nor the usual hustle of the staff. The princess roamed for what seemed like hours, yet found no one, no servants, no maids, no guards and no queen. That fact would have alerted her sooner, but the weight that hung on her made it difficult to focus, or to remember what she was looking for.

At once, she turned a corner and finally found someone at the end of the hall. It was Kristoff, Sven and Olaf, chatting away carelessly, though she couldn't hear what they were saying. Happy to finally find someone, she tried to call out to them, but her voice suddenly wouldn't work, with only a horse squeak coming out instead. It surprised her.

Without her call, the group suddenly started to walk away, making her try to call again and chase after them, though the heaviness in her body made it impossible to catch them and her feet felt like they were pushing through deep snow. They turned a corner and went out of sight, leaving her panting and struggling to catch up, her heart racing wildly and a strange feeling churning in her stomach.

As she turned the same corner, there was no one down the next corridor, which looked just like the one she had just left.

Breathing heavily, Anna shivered. She remembered having nightmares like this, where her body wouldn't move as she wanted and her voice wouldn't come out. It seemed no matter how hard she ran, she couldn't go anywhere and her frustrations began to mount.

Suddenly, she heard a sweet sound amongst the silence and turned the other way, finding the radiant form of Elsa through an open door, a soft smile on her face as she lovingly looked up to her prince, Yasha. The two of them were talking intimately, with soft touches against skin and their eyes alight with love, with his deep crimson uniform contrasting wildly against her glowing blue dress. While Anna wouldn't have usually bothered their warm mood, she felt a rush of panic again and tried to call out, with her voice still failing her.

Before she knew it, she was rushing forward towards the room, her legs still feeling like they were weighted, as the door to room began to swing closed.

Just as she reached out, the door securely latched shut. Grabbing it, she found it was stuck as well, though with a few frantic pushes it broke open and she went spilling into the room, finding it completely empty. Stumbling to the ground with a grunt, she panted as she looked around, not finding Elsa or Yasha or anyone else.

By now, her panic had grown into a paralyzing fear.

"What's going on?" she cried, then slipped her fingers over her lips, surprised that her voice worked again. There were no other doors in the room, yet no one was there. This labyrinth of isolation was worse than any nightmare, yet became infinitely worse a stabbing pain suddenly shot through her stomach, making her cringe wildly and wrap her arms around her precious child. "No no no, you're okay, baby. Mommy's still here," she cooed, trying to grasp at the only other presence in the quiet castle.

Then, with a horrified look on her face, she felt all of the pain bleed away and she realized her stomach was flat and quiet.

It took a moment to even register, but she no longer felt the strangely wonderful sensation of the child within, nor did the slight bump comfort her frantic grasps. Whimpering, she began to paw over her stomach, though there was nothing to be found aside from a perfectly neat dress that pulled tightly across her petite body.

"What…what is this?" she cried wildly, panting in fear, then quickly began to look around, hoping for one of those familiar faces to be there to help her, "Help! I need help! Is anyone there? Can anybody hear me?!"

There was no answer.

In a flight of panic, she tried to stand, but found her legs no longer worked. She looked around the empty room, yet there was no one to be seen. The castle was as quiet as a tomb. Her loved ones were absent. Her heart was terrified. Throttled by fear, her mouth was stretched wide in a scream for help, yet the screams no longer came. There was no one to take her hand.

There was only the silence of solitude, and it went nowhere within the empty world around her.

* * *

"Look, I'm telling you she's just going to be a little late, that's all. Why are you being so paranoid?" Kristoff remarked dryly as he stood among endless piles of snow, some stacked so high they dwarfed him, yet most so small they were no larger than trolls. He was pacing back and forth among them, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a gloved hand, while letting his eyes run around the cave with little regard for its oppressive heat. He had trouble focusing and kept rubbing the back of his neck, as if he had a splinter there, but his mind and heart were raging, mostly because of the chorus of whispers that circled him.

Impatiently, he wished they would all be quiet and let him think.

"No, that's not what I'm saying," he suddenly sighed, looking over to one of the stacks of snow, which endured despite the obvious heat of the cave, "There could be any reason she isn't here yet. Maybe she's still getting ready. Girls take a lot of time to get ready. Did you ever think of that?"

There was a heavy silence as he stared at the snow.

"I don't think I like your tone," he said with a frown, then stomped away and to pace in another part of the cave.

For longer than he could remember, he had been waiting. Initially, there had been countless questions as to why he was back in the caves between the Weeping Valley and Fria, feeling the soaking heat and craggy jaws of the rocks bearing down on his every move. He had the distinct feeling he was supposed to be somewhere, though a strange haze in his mind drowned out any clear thinking, making him focus on the one thing he could always hold to when he was lost in thought.

He was sure Anna was coming. He didn't know why or when, but he knew she would be there, though the chorus of voices around him made it difficult to wait, especially as some of them were whispering things that he didn't want to hear.

"Oh what, now you're going to start? You sound just like that guy!" he suddenly barked, flicking his hand between another stack of snow and the previous offender.

A pause followed, as if he were listening to a response, then he cawed and once more scratched at his neck, really wishing he could get the splinter out from under his skin. "Like I told everyone else, you're worried about stuff that was put to bed a long time ago. Even if she was off seeing him, they're just friends, okay? We had that discussion. And maybe he's not as bad as you all think he is. There's got to be a reason the queen's going to marry him, right?"

"All right, sure, maybe I'm still not totally okay when they sneak around together, but come on! She's married now! You know, to me and everything. We're having a kid!"

"Look, I'm not going back down this road again with you guys. We settled that. It's not something I'm worried about anymore."

Crossing his arms sternly, Kristoff stood strong against the whispers, holding to his position and ignoring the accusations. The whispers were digging out old wounds, chipping away at his resolve, but he felt confident in his claims. Once, these things had burned hotly within his chest, so much so that he had acted callously in times when he should have acted courageously. Even after he had married Anna, the whispers were still trying to take him back to the eroding feelings of anger that began in the very caves he stood, trying to take away the beautiful connection he had with the woman he loved.

Secretly, he was holding to his love for Anna fearfully, trying not to listen to what was being said around him.

Suddenly, he whirled around and glared at one of the smaller mounds of snow, his eyes becoming angry. "Hey, that's not even funny," he snarled, glaring as listened to the silent response.

"And what kind of proof would you even have for that? What makes you think it's even possible?"

More silence.

"Hey, I married Anna and, well, did what I was supposed to do. The timing doesn't lie. That baby is mine. End of story. No questions asked."

Silence again.

"Why are you still bringing it up? Anna's my wife! There's no way she would do something like that! Plus, that guy might be sort of shady and not the knight in shining armor everybody thinks he is, but even he wouldn't do something so low. You're all just stuck on the fact that in the past he was a kidnapper, probably a killer and not trustworthy at all. That doesn't mean he would do something like this. There's just no way."

"Right?"

By now, Kristoff's powerful stance had wilted and he was feverishly scratching at his neck, the splinter only fanning his annoyance and his pacing feet starting up once more. His skin felt hot and his brow was beaded with sweat. Everything the chorus sang about made his heart churn hotly and even though he tried to block them out, it all came back to the buried fears that he kept hidden away, even from those he loved most.

Tiredly, he began to focus on the absence of Anna and why the voices were making any sense at all. It was agonizing to suffer the doubts and not have her there to reassure him.

Once more, he began to pace among the mounds of snow, drowning in the whispers that coursed through the stifling air.

"Look, I'm telling you she's just going to be a little late, that's all. Why are you being so paranoid?"

* * *

When Johan's world came into focus, he was standing alone in an endless mist, his sword drawn and his eyes desperately trying to locate Anna and Kristoff. He was still in the snowfields of Lapland, though he could barely remember how he had gotten to that point, with his fierce sword raised out to defend someone from danger, but with not a sign of that danger to be seen. The tension over his sudden isolation kept his sword raised and he forcefully walked in all directions, finding that the landscape was unending and the mists oppressive. It didn't stop him from searching.

"Princess Anna! Prince Kristoff!" he yelled, using the clawed gauntlet of his armored sleeve to project his voice.

There was no answer. The mist was inconvenient and it lay against his skin unnaturally, but after an eternity of searching, he suddenly found a figure coming through the mists, one that seemed intimately familiar to him.

Despite that, his hand didn't loosen on his sword.

"Princess?" he called, seeing the petite figure slowly come into focus. The mist's grasp on the figure faded away and a beautiful woman revealed herself to him.

Upon realizing who it was, his posture froze, his eyes wide. He could barely believe it.

"Queen Elsa!"

Finding Elsa there was the last thing he expected and his heart beat faster at the sight of her, as it often did. She was approaching slowly, a strange look in her alluring eyes, though all of the strangeness escaped his scrutiny, as he was simply overjoyed to finally find her.

He marched towards her, smiling slightly in relief. "We've been searching for you, Your Majesty. I didn't expect to find you here," he remarked, lowering his sword.

She smiled softly, walking elegantly and free. Her eyes were unnaturally bright and her lips were deeply inflamed. "I can't tell you how happy it makes me that you came looking for me, Johann," she purred, finishing the distance between them and reaching out, running her slender fingers over the plate armor of his sleeve.

He shuddered at her movements, staring forward in surprise. "Is everything all right, Your Majesty?" he asked, trying to resist her mood.

She smiled as she circled him, her fingers tracing across the armor before finding the uniform at his back, where her touch was more intimate and made shivers run down his spine.

His reactions pleased her.

"Everything's fine now that you're here," she replied.

Johann was stunned. While in the past he had been able to fool himself into believing she would show him such affection, that was a story that had ended when she had given her heart over to another. To have her move like this now was bitter, though she had lost no command over his heart.

"Queen Elsa, you've not been well. And your sister is nearby. She's been very worried about you and…" he stuttered, though she briskly cut him off.

"Forget about her," she snapped quickly, her fingers making their orbit around his body and finding the bare skin at his throat as she came to a stop right in front of him, standing so close that he felt her chest brushing against him as she breathed. "I'm more interested in knowing if you were worried about me."

"Were you worried about me, Johann?"

A shaky breath rattled him and his eyes were drawn to her. "Of course I was," he whispered, feeling his defenses crack, "More than I could admit in open company."

Her dark smile widened and she played her red tongue over her lips.

"I'm glad."

By now, he could barely think straight and tried to focus on the task at hand, which was finding Anna and the others, to reunite them with the lost queen he had found. Where he should have been disciplined about his duty, he was drowning in the heat that she was churning within him, even when he knew it was completely wrong. The fact that he couldn't resist her was making him feel like the villain he was once was. "We really must return, Your Majesty," he managed to say, though his heart wasn't in it. He was too taken with her.

"Why don't we stay awhile? Just you and I," she suggested, reaching up to run her fingers down his jaw. The touch made him tense, and she appeared to enjoy the effect it had on him. "That is what you want, isn't it? To be here alone, where no one will find us? You could do anything you want to me. Anything at all. It'll be our little secret."

"Your Majesty…" he stuttered, but her touch and her voice melted away his resistance.

"Do you still love me, Johann?"

The question rattled him. It had taken him months of agony to bury what she was asking, and countless encounters where he had been forced to endure her in the arms of another, politely averting his eyes and pushing his heart into submission. Yielding to Yasha had been the most difficult thing he had done in his life, yet now she was before him, making these overtures, even when he knew it was false. Every ounce of his being told him that what stood before him wasn't the Elsa he loved, but the Elsa he wanted to love, but that didn't make the reality any less potent or difficult to resist.

"You know I do," he replied.

"Did you know that I love you too?" she said and drew closer, bringing her red lips closer to his as her breath played across his skin, "I've always loved you. From when we were children, and you watched me from afar. When you stood guard, glancing at me and hoping I didn't see. I've always noticed it. I've always noticed you."

"No," he replied sharply, his face twisted as he tried to break free of her, "This isn't right. The one you love isn't me. The one you love is…"

Before he could utter the name, she snared him and pressed her lips against his, holding him tightly so he couldn't get away. The kiss shattered any resistance he had left as he moaned, then the tension in his body went washing away. Even knowing the utter fantasy of it, he clenched his eyes and pulled her tightly against him, devouring her with all of the defeat and agony he had suffered since losing the battle for her heart. Her lips were as cold as he has always imagined, but he didn't care.

He would accept any flaw in her, just to have this chance.

After a long, empty embrace, he managed to break apart the kiss, gasping wildly. His mind was a torrent of conflict and his face was still twisted, but Elsa was his exact opposite, watching his every move with a deceptive smile on her face. She felt the way he still clung to her and the heat he had inside. It was unbelievably easy to control him, and she marveled how fragile the heart was when it was consumed by unrequited love.

Not even the smallest part of her pitied the continuing look of anguish on his face.

With him completely under her control, her red lips parted once more to enchant him when her body was suddenly jarred by a sudden thrust, and a gasp escaped instead. Her eyes widened. Her breath came out in pulses. From the top of her back, a sharp blade rose into the air, with its other half hung from her stomach. There was no blood on it, but she convulsed from the impalement, while she watched him slowly open his green eyes, a look of total malice glowing within them.

"You aren't her," he growled through a clenched jaw, possessed by anger and pushing her away as the blade slid from her body.

She gasped yet again, shaking her head desperately as she backed away, her hand over the wound that should have bled crimson into her blue dress.

"Johann, what are you doing?" she groaned, holding a clean hand out to him to try and lure him again.

"Stop it!" he wailed, raising the tip of his sword up to hover right before her face, his eyes still flashing and his heart utterly broken, "Stop this fantasy now. I won't be taken in by this deceit. I won't live this lie." His breath came out in pulses as well and his body was tense, and while the look in his eyes was of warning, they also held the agony of giving in, even for a moment. The shame he felt at dishonoring Elsa was almost as potent as the betrayal of his own heart and he heaved in dissatisfaction at his conduct. "She would never act like this."

"Not to me."

The queen before him tried to play the part for a bit longer, to maybe claim him again, but when she saw that he was beyond her seduction, her demeanor completely changed. She suddenly relaxed, dropping her hands from the hole in her body, where only ice existed within.

A distorted smirk crossed her face and she laughed darkly at his response. "Well done. You've seen through the ruse, but it won't help you," she taunted, enjoying the torment in his eyes. "You'll never get her back, you poor, lovesick boy. She'll always be just out of your reach. Everything you want is…"

Elsa's head suddenly jumped from her neck, falling off to the side without the slightest reaction and hitting the ground as a block of ice, shattering at her feet. The rest of her body was slowly bleached as the color bled away, leaving just an icy doll before him. Johann's sword came swinging back from the stroke and fell to his side, while his clawed hand rose up to cup his lips as he tried to process the crime that was just committed against him. He tried to figure out when he had discovered she was fake, but the answer didn't come clearly as he wanted it to.

When it came to his feelings for Elsa, he rarely had the clarity he wished for.

Trying to shake off the illusion, he attempted to reclaim the task at hand. He still had to find Anna and the others, not to mention the real Elsa, but for the moment he was shaken and barely able to breathe. The enemy had known exactly how to strike his heart. The assault left him weak and unsure of himself, so much so that instead of marching forward to fulfill his duty, he fell to his knees before the broken doll, clawing the armored gauntlet over his face, and allowing a pathetic groan rise despondently into the endless mists, where hopefully no one would hear it.

* * *

Back in the shadow of the castle at Lapland, Anna slowly opened her eyes, groaning as the grasp of her nightmare was released. The first thing she saw was Olaf, who was sitting over her with a worried expression that bloomed into a smile. Suddenly, he was waving a twig to the side and bouncing excitedly.

"Oh! Hey, Bad Guy! Anna's waking up!" he called.

With the pounding in her head, she could barely focus as Johann suddenly appeared, kneeling next to her and looking just as relieved. "Ugh, Johann?"

"Go slowly, Princess. Take a moment to gather your bearings," he advised, making sure she was strong enough to sit up before loosening his grasp. With her head slung into her hands, she panted a few times and tried to rub the throbbing away, finding it hard to breathe again. Kristoff also came to, his gloved hands plastered across his face and mimicking Anna's low groaning.

"Does anyone else feel like someone's pounding their head with a mallet?" he asked.

"I do," Anna grunted, then began to focus her eyes on the sunny, snowy landscape, as if it weren't what she expected to find, "What was that? I could've sworn I was just back home."

Rising to his feet, Johann still had his sword in hand and held out the shattered remains of the ice bees in his clawed gauntlet. "A magic spell, to prey on our hearts," he replied, "These were the cause." The creatures didn't mean much to her, but she suddenly gasped and clamped her hands around her stomach, finding the familiar bump and beautiful presence inside of her body. The nightmare lingered only as a wave of panic and fear, though the pain in her head drowned out most of the details.

For some reason, she was thankful for that.

"I had this terrible dream where everyone was gone and I was having problems with the baby," she recalled, sighing in relief, then noticed Kristoff had come sledding across the snowy ground towards her, making her hold out a commanding hand to head him off, "Whoa, calm down, daddy. It was a dream, remember?" Her calm manner assuaged him slightly, though he was running his hands over her stomach, panting quietly, while she tried to appear annoyed by the attention.

In the end, the realization it was only a dream and the fact that his hands calmed her even more made her turn her anger to the creatures that deserved it, looking at the crystals in Johann's hand. "What awful little bugs!" she yelled, wishing she had been the one to break them to pieces, but then noticing there were three distinct bees.

Suddenly, she realized it wasn't just her that suffered their attacks.

"So wait, did you guys see something too?"

The question made Kristoff freeze in his attention on her, slowly looking up as the memory of his dream also flashed through his mind. The subject of the conversations made a pestering heat boil beneath his skin, though he understood there was absolutely no way he could mention it her. "Me? Nope! Nothing! Well, nothing important. There was snow. You know how much I like snow and all," he remarked, sitting back and shrugging off the question with a laugh, though it faded within the memories and he stared forward, his smile turning to a grimace. "Just cold, all-knowing snow."

Anna quirked her brow. "Okay, that's not weird or anything," she said, trying to decode his response, but figuring there wasn't anything he could have seen that was as bad as hers. Instead, she sat back and let herself take a deep breath, shifting her eyes to Johann. "What about you?"

He wasn't paying attention. Staring forward across the snow, his fingers were grazing his lips. He appeared deep in thought and she found the mixture of emotions in his eyes striking. While she had been courteous enough to let Kristoff bury his nightmare, she was genuinely curious what would cause such a fierce look. She waited anxiously to hear his response.

After a moment, his eyes fluttered and slowly moved to her.

"It's not worth mentioning."

His response was even stranger than Kristoff's, but in the end she sighed and continued to run her hands over her stomach, scowling at the attack on her heart and mind. "Well, it couldn't have been any worse that what I saw. The next time I see a bug will be too soon. I'm going to ask them to clean out the entire castle and smash every creepy-crawly they see," she grumbled.

With the assault on them defeated and after recovering from their dreams, the group convened near the sled. After checking it over, Kristoff sighed heavily and dropped the leather straps from his hand, still scratching at the itchy sensation at his neck. "So much for the sled. They cut right through the harness," he grumbled, trying not to look at where the front was also splintered, "I guess we're walking from here on."

As he moved to remove the rest of Sven's harness, Johann had finally chased down his horse and led it back towards Anna, bringing the animal up next to her and patting it across the neck to keep it calm.

"You may ride my horse, Princess," he offered.

Anna smirked. "As much as I'm thrilled with the idea of bouncing around in that hard saddle, I think I'll pass," she replied as she pat the horse across the nose, then looked out towards the outline of the castle, "Besides, we're almost there. I can walk."

Johann sighed, knowing he couldn't ride along while his princess trudged across the snowy ground. "Very well," he said, taking the horse over to the sled and tying to reins to it.

After making sure to get anything else they might need from the sled, the group gathered in the snow, ready to make their final assault against the ghostly castle in the distance. With the razor-sharp snowflakes shattered and the insidious snow bees defeated, they felt that they had endured the worst Lapland had to offer, something that spurred them on, their pace slower but never so strong, as they resolved to finally breach the secret of what had drawn Elsa there.

They were certain that nothing could stop them now.

After a short, uneventful approach, the castle loomed above them, quiet and ominous. The frozen gardens were just beyond the opened gate and there was a feeling of anxiety in the air, as if there was something else that was supposed to happen before they confronted the villain that had stolen Elsa away. Olaf's banter was still being punctuated by a strange belligerence towards Sid, something that continued to concern Anna, but she was pushing forward as fast as she could, to not give anything else the chance to come between her and her sister. Now that she was staring at the large front doors of the castle, she sucked in a shaky breath, wondering exactly what answers awaited her inside. The idea of seeing her again excited her and frightened her, for she still had no idea what to say to her, especially in light of her violent departure.

In the end, she knew it didn't matter.

In the end, all that did matter was that Elsa was waiting for her inside.

"All right. We beat the snowflakes and those awful little bugs. Now let's get in there and knock around whoever took Elsa," she said and moved to push the large doors open, despite the fact that Johann suddenly jumped forward and placed his hand across the door in front of her.

"Please try and show some restraint, Princess," he said with a pensive frown, "Whoever is waiting for us here, they're obviously powerful enough to bewitch the queen. I think it would be better if I go first."

"If we both went first," Kristoff added, putting his hand on the door as well.

Anna smirked as she looked between them, though she was secretly happy they had stepped forward to help. The door was a lot heavier than it looked. "Man, you guys worry too much. What do you think I'm going to do, rush in there and wheeze on somebody?" she asked, though they didn't seem as amused by her little joke as she wanted.

No one understood her pregnant humor like Elsa did.

After being placated, the two of them gave each other a look and, with great effort, pushed open the doors to the frozen castle. Once inside, they all marveled at the timeless tomb they found. It was quiet and sterile. The chill in the air punctuated a lifeless atmosphere. With careful steps, they invaded the frigid place, finding that everything was completely locked in ice, from the paintings on the wall to the tables on the floor. It was as if even the sun couldn't break the icy grip on the castle, for even though it came in through the high windows, there seemed to be no heat and no way anything could live there.

As they pushed deeper into the keep, on guard against any more surprises, they entered the large hall where the broken staircase lay as rubble, with the large doors at the back pressed closed and the icy chandeliers hanging in the sunlight as if their tips were alight with flame. The fact that no one had protested their arrival only made them more nervous.

The castle had no guards or defenses, and that went against every one of their expectations.

"Wow, this place is huge," Anna said in awe, looking around as she backed across the icy floor, then locked her eyes on a cloudy painting on the wall. There was the rough outline of a figure, though frost had obscured any of the fine details, leaving a ghost to stare back lifelessly and making a shiver run down her back. The castle stood as a stark contrast to the lively castle in Arendelle. There was a sort of sadness in the frozen walls and it made her frown, continuing her slow march into the center of the hall, with the continuing silence in the air only adding to her apprehension. "I wonder who used to live here."

Suddenly, the doors at the back of the hall clapped loudly and startled them, instantly drawing Kristoff to Anna's side and the sword from Johann's belt. The invasion of sound on the silence castle drew them all tightly together, each breathing heavily, while the impossibly large doors splayed out before them. The depths of the castle opened, revealing a single black shadow beyond. As the doors stopped their whining cry, the sound of boots replaced the creaking wail, oppressing the silence and marching powerfully against them. The shadow's black coat and hood set a frightening contrast against the frozen world, while the ghoulish mask howled silently at them. The way it approached slowly only added to the anxiety.

"I'm more concerned with who still lives here," Johann growled.

After entering the hall, the black shadow came to a stop between them and the open doors. Its posture was dangerous and it was dreadfully silence. It was obviously not going to let them pass. "Okay, so creepy guy in the black coat and mask took the queen. He doesn't look like a pushover either," Kristoff remarked, his hands feeling the ice axes at his sides. While he wasn't the warrior that Johann was, he was committed to protecting his wife and child with the strength of his arms and the strength of his heart. Having a dark shadow to defeat did make things more straightforward, even if he felt the overwhelming pressure of their enemy.

His heart was already racing and his axes were coming loose from the leather loops in his belt when Anna suddenly lurched forward, her body unnaturally tight and her breath coming out in pulses. Her reaction staggered him.

"What's wrong, Anna?" he asked nervously.

"It can't be," she whispered, stepping out past both of them to face down the shadow from her past. From the moment she had seen it, she instantly recognized the mask, for no one would know it as she would. It was a terrifying image that had been burned into her memory, from a time that seemed like a lifetime ago. The mask instilled the same measure of fear in her as it did then as well, but for many different reasons. None of the others understood her reaction and stared on, wondering what could have spooked her so.

Anna tried to control her breathing, her brow collapsed and her voice calling out the single, terrified name of the cruelest villain they could have ever hoped to find waiting between them and Elsa.

"Yasha…"


	9. Return of the FireHeart

**IX**

Return of the FireHeart

A silence hung in the air that was more oppressive than the cold of the castle, with everyone completely shaken by the shadow that stood before them. Both Kristoff and Johann stared in disbelief, wondering if they had heard Anna right, but the way the shadow ground their advance to a halt was indicative of him, as Yasha had always commanded the atmosphere. This wasn't how and where they expected to find the future king of Arendelle, though Anna and Sid's premonitions had been correct about one thing – wherever there was Elsa, there would be Yasha. Anna might have been the most jarred, for while she was overcome with relief at finally seeing him again, his posture reminded her of their past, when he had been a dangerous creature lashing out against a cruel fate. Everything reminded her of that time, with the ashen mask being the most intimate to her.

Yet she knew it was him, without even seeing his face.

"Wait, are you serious?" Kristoff asked, looking between her and the shadow. She could only stare forward, silent in response.

"My baron," Johann said quietly, letting his sword fall slightly.

"Yasha!" Sid suddenly cried and launched towards him, as she didn't suffer the same anxiety as the others. Being a part of him, she resonated with his presence, even if she dismissed his dangerous posture. Despite everything, he was still the only thing in the world that she loved without condition, and her only real anger was that he hadn't taken her along.

No matter his reasons for impeding them, she would go to him, and even stand with him against them, if he were to but ask.

While her devotion was limitless, it took a great blow when a burst of heated magic met her, flashing brightly in the air and throwing her small figure clear back to the others, where she hit ground harshly, groaning as she slid a steaming line across the frosted floor.

The shadow hadn't even moved.

"Sid!" Anna gasped, crouching next to the moaning sprite, "Are you okay?"

At her side and in deference of his usual obsession, Olaf was looking on disdainfully, suffering his strange spell even in light of her treatment. "Serves you right, sparky," he scoffed.

Sid shot the snowman a fierce glare as she sat up, disoriented by way she had been shocked. "Ugh, I so don't like this new side of you," she groaned, but then looked past them all, where the figure stood motionlessly in their way. Anna's eyes followed and she could barely grasp what had happened, especially for what unnatural force could have repelled her. There had only been the flash of light and draft of hot air, but she had never seen Yasha treat Sid in such a way.

She starting doubting who it was that stood before them.

"Is that really you, Yasha?" she called cautiously, standing straight and taking a few steps forward, despite the way her instincts flared. The last time she had seen the mask was when they had first met, and that flood of memories always brought her heartrate up. He was quiet then as well, though her anxiety was nothing like it was now. When he had taken her, he was a frightening but troubled monster, daring her to dig through his masks to find his heart within.

Now, he was simply frightening, with no pretense for salvation to be seen.

As if finally answering her, the shadow stirred and reached up to push the hood back, his movements quiet and slow. His dark hair was disheveled and thrown loosely back from his face. After removing the hood, he then slipped his hand across the mask, clawing his fingers over it and then slowly lifting it away. Underneath was exactly what they expected, yet nothing they could have prepared for. Yasha glared back fiercely as he lowered the mask to his side, then dropped it to the ground with a loud rattle. His expression was focused and his lips were drawn tight, while his gray eyes were burning brightly with orange fire set deep within, revealing the secret he held in the depths of his heart. His otherworldly appearance sent ripples through the air, and just seeing it sent a wave of understanding through them all, though the belief was harder to hold, especially in light of the situation.

"What…what's going on?!" Anna gasped, shaking her head slowly in disbelief, "Your eyes! Why are they glowing?"

Yasha said nothing.

"So it's true then," Johann suddenly said, stepping slightly ahead, as if he considered his master to be the greatest danger to those he still guarded. "You still have the powers."

Anna's eyes shot to him. "What? You knew about this?" she demanded.

A scowl devoured him, for this also had relevance to his heart. It meant that in all of their battles, Yasha had been holding back something overwhelmingly powerful, as if their heated matches had been nothing more than a game. They had been so nearly equals in battle, yet only a fool would deny what the glow meant to that parity. The frustration and sense of betrayal was almost unbearable.

"I had my suspicions, Princess," he replied, focusing back on the sweltering presence before them, "But there's no doubting it now."

"Yasha still commands his FireHeart."

The words resonated heavily through the air. It meant that for every moment since the destruction of Fria, he had lied to them. He had deceived them. Despite all of his noble actions and their trials, he still showed that he had the villain in him, and they still had no idea how he played into this terrifying story of what brought Elsa to Lapland.

Anna stared, crushed by his silence, then slowly looked back to Sid, finally realizing why she had lingered when the source of her existence had supposedly disappeared. She also wanted to confirm the truth, without a shadow of a doubt.

"You must have known, Sid," she whispered.

The sprite wrapped her arms around her legs as she stayed sitting, still looking to her master and trying to understand the betrayal before her. "Of course I knew," she answered, suffering the fear of Yasha for the first time in her life, "The FireHeart's there, inside him. It's been there since the king died, but I've never felt it like this. It's screaming. And there's something else here, something making him like this.

"You need to be careful. Right now, it's like I don't even know who that is, even though I know it's him."

The sprite's body was trembling, though Anna could barely comprehend the words. Sid had never shown such anxiety when it came to Yasha, and for her not to know the state of his heart was terrifying. She could only look back to him, with a thousand questions to ask, yet was frozen by his silence, as if there were no words for what she felt at the moment.

Throttled by fear, she could only try to understand him at a distance.

"Leave this place. All of you," Yasha suddenly boomed, his voice thundering through the frigid hall. "There is nothing for you here."

His words were as cold as the castle. While they had waited with bated breath to hear what he would have to say after his long absence, his command pierced them with further fear and though his appearance was reminiscent of his past self, an unsure man who teetered between champion and criminal, now his voice was heavy with the authority he had earned since coming to Arendelle and taken the titles for which he was known.

Standing firmly in the depths of a villain's castle, he sounded like a king.

The command made Anna flinch. "Nothing for us here? Isn't Elsa here? That' a pretty big something!" she called back, regaining her composure and not backing down from him, as it always had been. When he didn't answer, it only made her push harder, which was also as it always had been. "Why won't you answer me, Yasha? Is this where you've been all this time? Are you somehow involved in all of this? What's going on with Elsa?"

"Elsa is walking the path, but she must do it alone. You cannot help her in this," he replied cryptically, though it caused the fear to bleed from her. Just hearing him admit that Elsa was near made her take another step forward, though it drew his disturbed eyes to her and she was once more stalled by how dangerous he appeared.

"Leave, Anna."

"Now."

As all he had now were orders, she felt her skin flush with anger, as if everything she was to him meant nothing. If there was anything their past could show, it was that she wouldn't simply follow his pace, and that he needed an impossible reason why she should obey and simply walk away from them both. "As if! I don't know what's going on with you, but if you think I'm going to run away just because you…" she began, stomping towards him to smack away the moody expression he wore, though she was utterly surprised when he flicked his hand out, making a column of fire come roaring from the ground in front of her.

She shrieked and hopped back. "Hey! Watch what you're doing with that fire, buster!"

He didn't answer, but kept his hand raised up. His actions brought Kristoff up to her side to check over her, while Johann once more took a place as her shield, his eyes glaring furiously forward. "You'd lift your hand against the princess?" he snarled, his sword leveled in her defense, "You've fallen far."

Seeing their reluctance to obey, Yasha's posture darkened. While he had hoped they would simply do as he said, he knew how misplaced those hopes were. However, as he had already committed to his own path, he wasn't about to let them pass. Resolve burned brightly in his eyes once more. "It seems words are not enough to convince you," he snarled viciously, slowly reaching around to slide his Xenocryst from his back with a loud, audible scrape. Just the sight of it silenced them, for drawing the black-bladed dagger meant he wasn't going to just throw lofty commands at them.

He was going to force them to obey.

Feeling angry, Kristoff stepped in front of Anna to protect her while Johann tried to prepare for the extraordinary duel. The two of them were washed by a mix of emotion and both knew exactly how formidable Yasha was, making preparations seem almost pointless, though they tried all the same. Only Anna still retained the hope that this was all just a mistake, and that he would never do anything to harm them.

In the deepest part of her heart, she knew he wouldn't attack them.

In a flash of fire, Yasha disappeared, only to reappear right in front of Johann. The display of magic startled them and Johann had only enough time to tuck in his armored arm to block the strike of the dagger, though the force was strong enough to throw his arm up, leaving him completely exposed. Even as muscles snapped back and he tried to recover, he felt a harsh blow to his midsection before Yasha instantly disappeared again, leaving a flash of flames in his face. The strike winded him, and soon he felt a painful kick to the back of his leg, dropping him forward with a loud grunt, his penitent blade chiming against the ground. With the knight staggered, Yasha suddenly turned and surprised Kristoff, who had barely enough time to react to the assault on Johann. Without hesitation the fiery prince stepped into him, thrusting an open hand into his sturdy body. A powerful, heated burst of air slammed into him, and he went sliding away across the icy floor while Yasha fluidly completed his revolution to bring another open hand into the face of Johann, who had just turned to face him again. With a surprised expression, Johann felt the same blow of force send him flying back, while Yasha wasted no time and once more flashed out sight, only to reappear behind Anna with a hand around her throat, seizing her entire body with fear and memory, and holding her tightly against him.

The entire assault had taken less time than it took for her try and call out, yet with his hand grasping her throat, she only managed to squeak in shock as his other hand came around and held her near the stomach, the flat feeling of his dagger potent against her.

With Kristoff and Johann beaten instantly, Anna stood alone against Yasha.

A startling calmness settled over them. Their situation brought back many buried memories. It was once again how they met, though things were so different now that it felt like some terrible nightmare. He wasn't some stranger appearing in her room, but a dear friend that she cared for deeply. She couldn't struggle, as he had captured her completely and pressed his body into hers, though as she tried to turn and see his face, she found her breath coming out in fearful gulps, as if she really had no idea what he would do.

"Yasha," she wheezed, finding it strange that she could still talk, even with his hand around her throat.

His voice was close, being whispered right against her ear. "Get away from this place, Anna, quickly and without hesitation."

"Please."

The last word made her shudder, for it was a glimpse of him – his true self. In this madness, she had written off his actions as the product of some spell or enchantment, just as she had with Elsa, but hearing that this was the person she cared for, she couldn't dismiss his villainy as easily, and it made her heart ache. This was her Yasha. She also realized that the glimpse of him could give her hope, for even as dastardly as he seemed, he was still the same person she adored, for his grasp on her was gentle, even if it was designed to push her away, and that his last appeal was true, uttered in a voice that told her he was just as afraid as she was for the fate of the person they both loved.

She knew instantly he was doing everything for Elsa, even making everyone his enemy.

Finding the courage to struggle against his grasp, she suddenly realized that playing nice with him wouldn't bring him back or answer any of the questions she had. As was the case between them so often, she realized she had to knock some sense into him. "I don't know what's going on, or why you're acting this way, but if nobody can do anything to help Elsa, you wouldn't be here," she grunted, trying to figure out a way to peel him off, "And if you think I'll run away just because you can still throw around a little fire, you don't know me as well as you think you do."

"I'm not leaving until I see my sister!"

With a firm resolve, she suddenly stomped down on his foot, making him grunt, and then threw her elbow into his stomach. The blow stunned him and broke his grasp, letting her stumble a step away and cradle her throat, looking back to him a fiery resolve. It was strangely ironic, as he had been the one to teach her the move, though now that she had broken free, she had no idea what she was going to do next.

Impishly, she realized she never really did think that far ahead when dealing with him.

Her deliverance was provided as he stumbled back into Kristoff, who grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him just in time to meet a vengeful fist, one that sent the villain stumbling further away. He then recovered his footing just in time to see Johann lunge at him, slashing his sword with no regard for their positions and showing no hesitation in trying to cleave him in two. While the strike was beautifully managed, it sailed through nothing but a swirl of flame as Yasha once more flashed away, only to reappear back where he had started, grunting as he settled into place and the back of his hand up to his sore jaw.

His glowing eyes were on the three of them as they stood united, not willing to follow his commands.

An annoyed breath escaped his pursed lips.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that," Kristoff remarked as he stood next to Anna, punching his fist into his hand.

"Stand down, Baron," Johann added, flaring his sword out and warding against any more surprise attacks, "Or I will no longer hold back."

Even with his magic, it was obvious that none of them were willing to obey, which made Yasha grouse as he stood straight, spitting a pat of blood to the side. While he didn't back down either, he wasn't willing to go much further against them, and that fact made Anna stab her hands onto her hips, looking down on him as the villain he was trying to be.

"Hah! How about that, mister moody kidnapper? Not so tough against all of us, huh?" she cheered.

Her taunting made him scowl, then sweep his hand out. In an arc along the floor, a massive wall of flame rose up, making her squeal in surprise. The display of his magic dominated the room and sealed off the only door to Elsa.

Kristoff had to raise his hand up to protect his face from the heat. "Okay, how do we get past the huge wall of fire?"

The new barrier made Anna's anger grow, for even as she could see him through the raging flames, she realized by the look on his face that he was torn by his actions and trying to not hurt them. Despite her anger, it made her hope grow brighter than the flames between them. "Yasha! Stop this!" she cried, trying to focus on the expression he wore, "Whatever is happening to Elsa, I know we can figure out a way to help her together! You don't have to do try to do this alone!"

On the other side, Yasha grimaced, trying to ignore her. It was a bitter feeling to know he could force them with his hand, yet was being restrained by his heart. He looked back to the open door, realizing that Anna had as much right to run after Elsa as he did, though he felt completely lost now, turning that hand against those he cared for, as if everything Lind predicted had come true. In his loose grasp, the Xenocryst was heavy and the inferno in his chest was still potent. While he wanted to blame the effect of the IceHeart for how easily he could lash out at them, he felt it was a flimsy defense and that no amount of apology would spare him from the sins he was committing. He didn't even know what he was fighting for and what would happen when Elsa once more appeared before him, but he knew he didn't want Anna anywhere near Lind, for he was certain she was dangerous to Elsa's precious sister.

For the moment, it was all he could to stand there and ward them away with empty threats and magic.

"You are a frightening child," Lind's voice suddenly called through the air, making his body tighten once more as he stared up at the broken balcony, where the woman's icy figure suddenly appeared. She looked down coldly, yet with a wicked smile on her face. "But that's enough."

"It is done."

The others saw her figure as well, though they had no idea who she was, while her words made Yasha's breath jump from his pursed lips, finding the dreaded moment at hand.

"Then Elsa is…?" he started, but couldn't finish.

He was too afraid of the answer.

Lind's glowing eyes taunted him. "Everything is going as planned," she laughed quietly, then turned and disappeared from the balcony, retreating back into her palace where her most precious treasures lay inside.

"Lind!" Yasha roared in a fit, then disappeared in a flash before reappearing on the balcony, where he then sprinted after her, his dagger tightly in hand.

Anna and the others watched the exchange with countless questions, finding that even though he had disappeared, his potent wall of flame remained. They were just as stuck as before. "Hey, wait!" she cried, though no one appeared on the balcony and she gruffly exhaled at his notorious stubbornness. "Well, that's just great! Now how do we get inside?"

A pause settled over their quest. The rampart of flame didn't retreat in the slightest and there was no other way into the castle, where all of the answers lie. Johann had entertained the idea of trying to leap through, with his sleeve providing some protection, yet Anna firmly denied him, not wanting anyone to hurt themselves just to face Yasha alone. She knew she was the only person that could talk some sense into him, and she desperately wanted him on their side for when they finally met Elsa, for if a stubborn sister weighted their chances at rescuing her, a wayward fiancée would certainly throw the scales away. She had no idea who that other woman was, but the way he ran after her meant she was no friend, and that she was likely the source of all of their troubles.

Sighing impatiently, she really wanted to get through the flames and go after them.

Without them realizing, a powerful frost from the other side of the wall of fire crept along the ground, accompanied by the soft sounds of two feet that approached. Against the raging inferno of flame, they couldn't see or hear the figure that approached, but when the frost reached Yasha's magical blockade, it had no trouble creeping up the flames, grinding them to a frozen halt and bleaching them the same color as the castle. The shrieking sounds of the dying flames wrenched everyone's attention to them, wondering what was happening to defeat Yasha's magic, yet all answers were revealed when the wall froze completely, then shattered into a wave of icy dust that filled the air with a frigid chill and thousands of sparkling lights.

Standing in the exact place where Yasha had stood was Elsa.


	10. Arrhythmia

**X**

Arrhythmia

On an upper level of the castle, Yasha came to a fevered halt, his Xenocryst held tightly in his hand and his orange eyes flaring wildly. Unlike the encounter with Anna and the others, the full force of his fury was raging, with the source of his wrath somewhere nearby. The banquet hall he found was still set with a frozen feast, with empty chairs in attendance for their rendezvous, but he hadn't even the slightest hint of affection for the consort he searched for, instead wanting nothing more than to settle the ancient dispute between their bloodlines.

"Lind! Come out!"

After a moment, an icy figure came into view at the head of the table, her fingers playfully running along the frosted surface while her eyes rested across her furious suitor. To his continued anger, she had apparently been waiting for him. "Such fire in your eyes. Do you really desire my attention so?" she purred, though kept her distance for good reason. She was keenly aware how dangerous he was.

Yasha flared. "I will not play your games! What have you done to Elsa?" he demanded.

"What an odd question, considering you chased me instead of going to see for yourself," she replied, watching with a smile as it only made him angrier. "I wonder why that is."

Her response was the first blow in their battle, as it strangely stalled his assault. His agreement with Lind fulfilled, he now had the freedom to go to Elsa anytime, yet something deep inside was holding him back. He had already lashed out at Anna, someone he cared for just as deeply, and the haunting fury that infected him when he stood before the IceHeart warned him that despite his intense desire to be with the one he loved, there was a monster inside of him. He felt an incomparable repulsion to the IceHeart, and if Elsa had now mastered it, he had no idea how he would react upon seeing her.

Bitterly, he hated himself for not seeing this terrible situation coming.

"I will not ask you again," he growled, keeping his attention on the enemy he despised and not the one he loved, with tendrils of flame licking his body and rising up into the air.

Lind laughed, finding his behavior predictable, if not reminiscent of a painful past never forgotten. "What are you going to do? Stab me with your little knife? Burn me with your passionate flames?" she asked, stepping away from the table and giving herself to him as a ripe target. Her expression became darker as she fought the memories that surged from within. "I've already endured the worst this world has to offer. Your threats mean nothing to me."

"Do not try for my sympathy. I care nothing for your past or the grudges you bear," he replied sharply, "Everyone suffers the schemes of the world. Fate favors no one, and I will not stand here and prattle along with you. We will settle this here, and you will not succeed in your plans."

"I did not come this far only to lose her now!"

In a burst of flame, he suddenly appeared before her, thrusting his dagger at her heart, though finding her open hand instead. The blade sank deeply into her flesh, yet there was no blood, only a powerful resistance to his blow. At first he was shocked that she could stop him, yet as a perverse smile came over her face and her hand wrapped around his blade, he realized this was yet another of Lind's dolls, blessed with unnatural strength and a disposable body. Scoffing, he suddenly pulled his blade upwards and tore the doll's hand apart, then pushed his other hand into its face, where a powerful burst of flame incinerated its head.

Just as he defeated her, a massive spear of ice pierced the air, missing him only as he spun out of the way, where it shattered the table with a crash. As he looked for the source, he found two more dolls smiling viciously while they readied yet another pair of deadly icicles, their frozen tips aimed squarely at his heart.

His back to the broken table, Yasha quickly rolled out of the way of their next assault, though when another came from the other direction, he had no time to dodge, instead disappearing into a burst of flames, only to reappear further away from the table, staring at another set of dolls at the other side of the room. With Lind's laughter floating around him, dozens of icy dolls appeared, surrounding him with an army of her smiling faces, while he took a moment to catch his breath.

Suddenly, he wasn't so eager to have her as his enemy.

Bursting with laughter, Lind's dolls began to hurl a mixture of lethal icicles and blasts of frozen magic, forcing him to flash in and out of sight, barely able to get his bearings long enough to avoid the next strike. Unlike his battle with Elsa so long ago, he sensed Lind's skill and realized she had lived a life of conflict, not unlike himself. Where Elsa's magic had always been reactive, Lind used hers with great intent, even if it didn't seem nearly as strong.

Inwardly, he was thankful for that, for if Lind had been as powerful as Elsa, he imagined he wouldn't last long against her.

After his display of acrobatic finesse, one of the dolls suddenly shattered into a shower of icy dust amongst the others, making them all recoil slightly at the sight. Yasha's Xenocryst was fresh from landing the powerful blow as he dashed quickly through the room and impaled yet another, followed by a blast of fire from the blade that sent more sparkling ice all around. As he suspected, the combination of his mystical blade and ancient magic was deadly to the dolls, though there still many left and he was beginning to feel winded by the usage of his power. The same old pains in his chest began to grow and he cawed slightly, still utterly disgusted that even after claiming the FireHeart, it exacted a painful toll on him.

As Elsa had never shown such pain, he still couldn't fathom why his magic was different than hers.

One by one, the dolls began to shatter at his hand, though they still retained the same amusement. Lind didn't seem concerned by their loss in the slightest, and continued to assault him where she knew it would do the most damage – his heart. "So much passion. So much fire. I think you might be more attuned to the FireHeart than your father was. You're the true heir to his legacy," she remarked, though the doll that spoke soon met a fiery end as Yasha unleashed a massive wave of flames into the room, one that halved the amount of servants Lind had left.

He had lost his cool demeanor.

"Do not speak to me of my father! I had no father!" he raged, putting his anger into his effort and throwing powerful blasts all around, some missing their targets and some finding them, while otherwise scorching the tomb-like room. "I had a monster! A tyrant!"

Lind smirked. "Poor child. You don't need to tell me of Alexei. I know him better than anyone," she replied as she dismissed his response with an angry swipe of her hand, "So don't lecture me, boy. No one has suffered by his hand more than I have!"

The dolls changed tactics, surging forward with icy blades growing from their hands. Yasha was surprised by their sudden assault, but met them with his dagger, moving with incredible speed to evade and destroy them. His time in the Royal Guard had honed his battle skills to a fine edge. Ironically, the greatest contributor to his ability was Johann, for spending endless hours at the edge of his skillful sword made the dolls' attempts seem paltry, and their blades were unable to find him.

He was making short work of them until a sudden pain ripped through his chest, making him cough loudly and awkwardly stumble to the ground. None of the dolls had been close enough to land a blow and they all suddenly stopped as well, slowly backing away from as he wheezed, his hand clawed across his chest.

"Not now," he groaned, trying to stand but remaining crumbled, feeling an overwhelming inferno inside of his body, as if the FireHeart were trying to incinerate him from the inside out, "Why now?"

While his plight should have been the opportunity she was waiting for, Lind watched him, the same look of delight on the faces of all the dolls. "Look at you, still feeling the pains of the Heart. Haven't you ever wondered why? Doesn't it seem strange that even after becoming its master, you can't use its full power?" she said, approaching him slowly and kneeling in spite of the obvious danger at being within his reach. He glared back fiercely, but seemed unable to do anything but endure her taunts.

"It's because you still fear it. You fight it with every breath. You're just a boy that lives in the shadow of his father, and because of it, you'll never use the FireHeart to its full potential," she continued, reaching out and placing her finger against his heaving chest.

"It's your heart…that gets in the way of your Heart."

Yasha winced. Letting her come so close and have the advantage meant nothing in light of the revelation she offered, for if it were true, he had unwittingly been torturing himself ever since the FireHeart became his. Bitterly, it made perfect sense. He had always resented it, always feared it, even when he desired it above all else. It was the symbol of his father, so inheriting it was like a poison stabbed deeply into his chest, infecting him with more anger and doubt than his bloodline ever could. While these pains had once been the design of Nazir's curse, they were now nothing more than the self-imposed chains he placed on himself as he struggled to come to terms with his legacy.

Now, as he sat poised to lose everything he cherished, he hated himself as much as he hated his father, for he was still letting himself be defeated by him long after he had faded away.

As he knelt before her, digesting the depths of his failing, Yasha went still. The simple realization of his true enemy helped smother the fires in his chest and the screaming of the FireHeart became calmer. Still frustrated but no longer able to accommodate callow sentiment, he let out a slow breath, bowing his head slightly. While Lind looked on curiously at his sudden tranquility, he let out a bitter croak at his own stupidity, before lifting his hand slowly and incinerating the doll before him with a focused shaft of fire.

The rest of Lind's dolls scowled at his sudden recovery, yet took another step back as he slowly rose to his feet, as if the pain no longer bothered him and the chains on his Heart were cast free.

"I do not need advice about the heart from one that has none, though you have done me a great service, Lind," he said, exhaling sharply and feeling synced with his Heart for the first time since taking it into his chest. Standing before her, he felt invigorated by the realization of what made his heart burn, and the reasons why he could no longer hold the FireHeart back. He had too much at stake to be afraid of ghosts any longer. "Perhaps I do still fear it, and the shadow of Nazir, but if it is for her sake, I will accept any fear and any shadow. I will accept the legacy of my father's Heart, but I will make it bow to my will and none other. That is my resolve, Lind, and it begins here, with you."

As his words grew more passionate, the fire around him grew, tearing the ancient frost from the castle and shaking the stone floor. The waves of heat were melting Lind's frozen world, and she cursed how her taunting had backfired.

Instead of breaking him, she had only made him stronger.

Without another word, Yasha flashed out sight. Stillness hung in the air for a moment before he suddenly appeared in several places in the hall, as if emulating her ability to create avatars of ancient magic. The flashes of him moved quickly and mercilessly as they shattered the gawking dolls in quick succession, appearing only long enough to claim one before disappearing into wisps of flame and reducing her numbers to nearly nothing.

Letting out an annoyed breath, Lind threw her hand through the air and drew another wave of dolls from the ground, their grotesque forms slowly beginning to form, yet even those were quickly destroyed by Yasha's renewed assault. The figure directing the dolls stepped further back from the massacre, until a black blade pierced her chest from behind, much to her surprise.

She gasped loudly, looking back to find him behind her, glaring harshly at her with glowing orange eyes. "You cannot hide from me forever. I know one of these is your true self," he growled.

Lind heaved at the blade sticking out of her chest, then dismissed his words with a smirk, shattering to pieces just as all of the others had. Yasha groused at finding yet another doll, yet her voice floated over the carnage, accompanied by soft laughter. "Perceptive. But which one? Can you figure it out before I tear you to pieces?" she asked as several more dolls appeared out of the shadows. They circled him once more, brandishing their icy spears, while he once more tightened his posture and focused his magic.

Feeling the overflowing power of the unchained FireHeart, he resolved to take on an entire army to free Elsa from her grasp. "There is one way to find out!"

Instead of systematically taking out the dolls in groups, a fiery image of him appeared everywhere in the hall, stabbing a flaming blade through the dolls all at once. He had begun to grasp the utility of FireHeart, creating avatars of flame that could move to do his bidding, even if they only lasted mere moments. Lind knew even Alexei hadn't perfected her favored technique, making her marvel once more at just how capable his son was in wielding his Heart, though that appreciation was lost on the horrified faces of the dolls. They all gasped in unison, slowly bleeding their color, until there was only one left, standing in surprise as the real black blade hung from her chest, with the raging son of her lover standing before her.

His orange eyes burning through her, the rest of the images disappeared into wisps of flames, leaving only the two of them standing there, locked in conclusion to their passionate battle with his mystic blade plunged deeply into her real body.

"Found you," he snarled.

Trembling at his strike, she clenched her teeth and glared, never imagining he would reach her so quickly. Their battle was supposed to drag on longer, to allow other events to transpire elsewhere in the castle, so having him break through his chains was almost as unnerving as the feeling of his foul blade in her body.

Shaken, she slowly reached up and placed her hands around his arm for support, wilting forward slightly as he kept his Xenocryst firm, then heaved a few painful breaths, wondering just how much she had underestimated him. His desires for her child, coupled with the mastery of the FireHeart made him one of the most dangerous creatures she could imagine, as well as reviled for the blood of her fallen lover flowing through his veins.

Truthfully, as much as she enjoyed playing with him, his persistence was starting to irritate her.

With her performance concluded, a smile crossed her face, while a powerful chill suddenly coursed through Yasha's body, making him shiver for a moment, then cease to move completely. Frost crept through his wide eyes and his mouth hung open, an expression that made soft laughter drift from her lips as she slowly looked up, the glow in her eyes as bright as ever.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" she purred, then slowly stepped back and felt the black blade sliding from her chest.

A strangely erotic whimper escaped her as the dagger withdrew from her body, with her disjointed expression touched by twinges of pain, until the tip was visible at her chest and she let out a sharp breath, looking down at it. There was no blood or ice on it, nor at the slit in her chest, but she slowly reached up and ran her finger seductively along the cut, her smile pulsing with a strange giddiness.

She hadn't been stabbed in a very long time, but the sensation was still bizarre.

Still laughing, her eyes rose, the frozen expression on his face arousing, as the empty hole in between her breasts sealed up, as perfectly flawless as it had been before his attack. "I may be immortal, but that still hurts," she pouted, then offered him a far more devious glare, "And you have a short memory. As long as the IceHeart exists, I can't die. And now you can't destroy it without killing the one you love. You'll never defeat me. No matter how hard you try."

Lording her domination over him, she stepped close, enjoying his frantic posture. He looked so angry, thrusting his powerful blade into empty air, while his entire body trembled, as if the FireHeart would dispel her lock any moment. Basking in her arousal and even as she understood the danger he presented, she couldn't help but be taken by him, and she laid her head across his arm with a sigh, running her fingers along him, a toy for her every whim. "You're so much like Alexei once was. So strong. So beautiful. And you have this glimmer that he didn't, something noble, something warm. Maybe you really could make a different choice," she whispered, running her fingers up to his face and then running them down his jaw. Her eyes were aloof and her voice quiet. Having his fate in her hands felt so tragically familiar, as if she were looking into her own past, though soon her expression faded and her lips turned down.

This time, things would be different.

This time, she wouldn't make the same mistake.

At her side, a curved blade of ice swirled into her other hand, then was plunged deeply into his side, making a strangled groan burst from his throat. Although unable to move, he showed the agony of having the blade inside of him, and she enjoyed his suffering greatly as she broke it off, the translucent handle shattering to dust in her hand. A wave of blood washed his coat, with several drops running down and falling to the icy ground at his feet, yet he remained frozen, only able to gasp at the intense pain.

Lind once more ran her hand down his face, still looking intently into his eyes, which were now singularly focused with the expectation of his demise. "But you won't get that chance," she whispered, a powerful sense of possession coursing through her.

"Elsa is mine."

In all of his years in exile and despite living a life of chaos, he had never been wounded so grievously, and he knew if not for the power of the FireHeart, such trauma would be fatal. Even though his Heart gave him extraordinary healing powers, Lind left the blade of ice there as a testament to her cruelty, letting the blood continue to run and the pain continue to strangle him. Bitterly, he realized he had underestimated her. Like Nazir, it wasn't her immortality itself that made her so dangerous, but countless years of living that turned her into a creature that didn't move according to the rules of the world.

Lind had been forged by the IceHeart into a heartless queen over a frozen castle, and not even Yasha seemed capable of halting her plans.

Realizing his disadvantage, he cursed his inability to defeat her and began to pool what magic he could spare, pressing it against her enchantment. If he had no chance against her, he would have to go find the one person that could help him find a way to succeed, even if he was unsure of his footing with her now. Deep in his heart, he had to trust in the connection they had, and that even his renewed villainy wouldn't be enough to cause her to forsake him.

Secretly, that was just another fear that carried with him, bundled tightly with all of the others.

With much effort, Yasha suddenly flashed away, leaving Lind to fall forward slightly. While she was surprised he had been strong enough to escape, she didn't pursue him, instead letting out a deep sigh as she regained her footing and wrapped her arms around her, staring at the pool of blood on the floor. Her instincts told her to stop him from his inevitable reunion with her enraptured child, but another part of her wanted to let him go. That part was deeply rooted in her past, and it drew a pained expression across her face, the blood reflecting darkly in her beautiful, cold eyes.

"That part of you is like Alexei as well," she whispered to the blood.

"Both of you…so quick to run away from me."


	11. The Dark Queen Elsa

**XI**

The Dark Queen Elsa

As if the shocking presence of Yasha hadn't been enough, the fact that Elsa finally stood before Anna and the others rattled their already shaken emotions, for she was the entire reason they had braved the dangers of Lapland, and in spite of anything else, they felt completely unprepared to face her as she appeared before them. Instead of the radiant, gentle queen they knew, the person before them was darker, with a cresting collar on a deep indigo dress that spread out on the floor around her. Her hands were nearly covered by the sleeves, leaving only her fingers exposed, with her ashen face the only sign of her, framed by the oppression of her dress. Instead of the braid hanging at her neck, her hair was untangled wildly around her shoulders, with streaks of black slithering through it like snakes. The hue around her eyes was dark and her lips were cobalt blue, while a powerful glow of turquoise lingered in her eyes as they were set firmly upon them.

Each one of them were silenced by her appearance, for she appeared so unlike the Elsa they knew, they once more questioned whether the person that stood before them was who they thought they were.

"Wow, Elsa. What's with the hair?" Anna finally managed, taking a step forward and running her eyes over her quiet sister, "It's not like it's not good or anything…okay, it's not good. But what's going on here? Why are you dressed like that?" She was a torrent a questions and expectations, feeling fearful of her silence, though she still held tightly to the hope that just finding her was the first step in resolving the issues at hand, even if she really had no idea what the issues were in the first place.

Elsa's eyes were on Anna alone. Her expression was cold as ice.

"Why are you here?" she asked quietly.

Anna flinched. "What? What kind of question is that? To get you, of course. You sort of freaked everyone out when ran off," she replied, her brow collapsing at the strange spell that still seemed to hold her sister tightly in its grasp, "What's gotten into you, anyway?"

The question made Elsa's expression break for the first time, though the smile that spread on her face didn't alleviate Anna's concerns in the slightest.

If anything, they only made them worse.

"The IceHeart," she answered.

Anna's face twisted in confusion. "The what-heart?"

The intimacy of the subject and the person she spoke to made Elsa's frigid presence crack, with her eyes finally breaking loose from their cold stare. "I finally understand these powers, Anna. I finally understand the reason I have them," she explained, looking down to her hands and not feeling even the smallest bit of fear of them. "It was Lind. Lind is behind everything."

"Lind?!" Anna gasped, "You mean that creepy voice that kept popping into your head while we were running around Fria? That's who Yasha went running after?"

Hearing the name of her beloved prince made Elsa's eyes rise sharply, though they didn't have the same glow Anna would expect at hearing that he was near. With how distraught she had been over the last few weeks, Anna expected her sister to demand to know more about him or want to see him.

Instead, she simply continued on, talking as if the name meant nothing at all. "Lind is the same as Nazir. She's the creator of the IceHeart, and the one who gave me these powers before I was even born. She saved our mother's life, Anna, and made it so I would be born with them. I'm her successor, and she called me to show me their true nature," Elsa explained, her expression like that of a woman in love, speaking of a suitor that was exactly everything she had ever hoped them to be. "I entered the IceHeart. It was unlike anything I've ever imagined. Now I feel it coursing through my veins, letting me see why the magic exists, and how to control it perfectly. I never have to fear my powers again."

Anna let out a shaky breath. Like before, she felt like she was looking at someone who wasn't her sister. While she hadn't been there when Yasha and Elsa faced the FireHeart, she had been told the story in great detail by the both of them, so much so that she felt like the only other person who could appreciate what they had gone through. To hear Elsa talk so wistfully about walking the same dangerous path he had made her blood run cold.

"Okay, now you're scaring your sister, Elsa," she said worriedly, "Did you forget that Nazir tried to _eat_ Yasha?"

Elsa laughed softly. "Lind isn't like that," she replied, then dropped her hands in frustration, "If only you could understand. She's been alone for so long. She just wants someone who understands her, to be here with her. She's just like me, just like I was."

"That's why I have to stay with her, Anna."

"Forever."

"Um yeah, that's not going to work for me," Anna replied with a grimace, not entertaining the idea of Elsa's departure from her life for even a moment, "You see, I kind of want you back home. Where you're the queen and everything? And I'm kind of not the only one, so just tell her that you'll pass on the whole staying here forever thing."

The affection bled from Elsa's face. Deep down, she had hoped that out of everyone in the world, Anna would understand her desires and support her new turn in life. Strangely, she felt angry when she recalled that the last time she tried to follow her heart and explore her powers, with Anna stubbornly dismissing everything she wanted to take her back to Arendelle. She also had no idea why she had been so supportive of her romance with Yasha, yet wouldn't consider Lind at all. It began to churn even darker feelings inside.

"She's right. You can't understand. You'll never understand," Elsa said coldly, with a bitterly freezing wind rising around her, shocking them all for its ferocity and the way her eyes were completely blank as she stared at them.

"I think the one that need to leave this place is you."

At her command, the wind began to rip forcefully through the air, blasting through them with razor-sharp blades of snow stinging their faces. The sudden reaction sent a new wave of panic through Anna, who tried to protect her face with her arms while still keeping her eyes on her enchanted sister. "Wait, Elsa!" she cried, though felt the wind pushing against her and threatening to eject her from the hall. Despite the pain from the snow, she tried to hold her ground, yet found her feet sliding across the icy floor, away from the sister she desperately wanted to save. The only thing that stopped her was a strong hand that suddenly pressed against her back, with Kristoff holding ground much better with Sven at his back, even if he was also trying to defend himself from Elsa's sudden torrent.

"This is starting to feel familiar!" he yelled, remembering the time he had to resist the force of Elsa's powers on the fjord.

Johann was also holding ground, with Sid and Olaf behind his back, as he held his armored sleeve up for protection. His eyes were also fiercely on Elsa. "Your Majesty!"

With their stubborn efforts to remain, Elsa's face soured further. While a part of her was screaming for her to stop, a much more overwhelming voice was pushing her to continue, to send them out of her world. At the moment, she could only thing of returning to Lind, and the glow in her eyes flashed brightly, making the wind pick up. The circular wall of magic surged through the hall and hit them with much greater force than before, taking Johan's feet out from under him and sending him and those he sheltered skidding towards the doors. At the same time, the wind tore Kristoff and Sven away as well, though oddly didn't affect Anna at all, leaving her to look back at her sprawling friends, her heart racing wildly in her chest. "Kristoff! Johann!" she cried, wondering why she was the only one that remained, then turned and looked back to her sister, terrified of her expression.

"Elsa, please stop! Why are you acting this way?"

To her surprise, Elsa looked equally surprised at her resistance and frowned, not really understanding why her magic couldn't push Anna away. The two sisters faced each other, buried in the snowstorm, with so much to say, yet silence on their lips. Anna didn't know to appeal to this person before her, for she firmly believed Elsa would never act this way. Her exotic appearance and cold demeanor were betraying the depths of the spell on her, yet she had no idea how to bring her back, or even how to stand firm against her assault.

All she truly knew was that she couldn't afford to give up, not when she had to reach Elsa's heart.

While there had a momentary lull in the storm, Elsa's hand suddenly raised up, splaying out towards her sister. The wind intensified. The air became colder. The snow became sharper. By now, Anna couldn't keep herself from crying out, while Elsa's eyes betrayed the look of utter terror as she brought the full fury of her magic upon the sister she loved so much, yet seemed as if her stated control over the magic was fleeting, or was being orchestrated by something else completely.

And then, a shadow appeared before Anna in a brilliant flash of flames, dispersing the storm with burst of powerful magic of his own.

"Stop this, Elsa!"

Anna heard the voice and instantly straightened, seeing the dark figure breaking the storm Elsa had created. "Yasha!" she cried, feeling an overwhelming relief as he stood where she had wanted him to stand – with her in bringing Elsa back home.

Elsa was shocked by his appearance, for there was a potent mixture of repulsion and desire that flared across her face. It was the first time she had seen him in weeks and her heart began racing wildly even within her frozen chest. A pained gasp escaped her dark lips. No small part of her wanted to suddenly rush forward, to forget everything that had happened since being stricken by Lind and reclaim the life that was waiting for them. Her thumb even played across the mystical ring on her finger, the one he had placed there when he proposed, like an echo of the future he had promised her. She could also see a dark stain on his side and the way he stood awkwardly, his skin pale and his breathing laboring despite the way he tried to appear strong. Every fiber of her being was consumed by him, yet all she managed to portray was a callous reaction to his appearance, sung out by the toneless apathy in her voice.

"There you are, my dear husband. You don't appear well."

Yasha flinched at her reaction, though he didn't back down. He had felt all of the same things, the same longings, yet understood his position was precarious and that he couldn't take her for granted. He already knew that she had claimed the IceHeart, for now her mere presence made the FireHeart rage violently, making it difficult to control. Even the premature moniker of their marriage seemed like nothing more than a wicked taunt, for nothing about the woman before him appeared like the Elsa he intended to share his life with, and his every instinct was telling him to be wary of her.

Anna was oblivious to his plight, merely happy he was acting like himself again. "Took you long enough!" she barked, slapping him across the shoulder, to which he had no reply. Their previous encounter was still making her seethe, though she quickly noticed his condition and the spread of sickly blood coming from the gash in the side of his coat. Her heart stumbled in its fit.

"You're bleeding, Yasha!" she cried, trying to attend to him, yet was instantly pushed back by the heat coming from his body.

He was still solely fixated forward on the dark queen before him.

"I feel it within you, Elsa. I feel the power of the IceHeart. But it does not control you. You must learn to control it, as you did with the FireHeart. You must make it obey your will," he panted.

Elsa looked defensive. "Sound advice as always, but you're wasting your breath. You should understand better than anyone, having been inside the FireHeart, and how it burns within you now," she replied venomously, revealing just how betrayed she felt by that, then continuing to talk to him as if he were some stranger and not the man she had given her heart to completely, "Now I understand how you felt when you stepped out and saw the world, to feel the power, letting you do anything you want. It really is something beyond words."

"And you're wrong about one thing. I'm not under the influence of the IceHeart."

"I am the IceHeart."

Yasha flinched. He knew that feeling well. The pride and power granted by the Heart was intoxicating, as was the feeling of being chosen by it. Elsa stood before him as a successor, just as he once did before her. He could understand her heart completely, yet knew the path that she walked, and where it led. He didn't want to see her make his same mistakes, nor even imagine a world where the cold queen that stood before him took the place of the beautiful, gentle woman he had fallen in love with.

"It is you that is wrong, and you should also understand better than anyone. When I exited the FireHeart, I was no longer myself, and it was you that brought from my madness," he answered, standing straight in spite of his wound and showing her his resolve to take her away from this frozen world. "Now, I will do the same for you, regardless of its will. You are not this Snow Queen that Lind would make of you. You are the sister for the one that needs you. You are the queen for a kingdom that needs you. And you are the wife for someone that needs you. That is who you are, not this doll made to dance by strings of ice and deceit."

Elsa listened with a cold stare, revealing nothing of the conflict in her heart, while Anna let out a sigh of relief, putting her hand on her hip as she glared at him.

"Sheesh, it's about time you started making sense," she griped.

Only the slightest of smiles touched the corner of Yasha's lips as he continued to face down Elsa.

"As poetic as ever," the dark queen replied distantly, immune to his appeals, "But those days are gone. Don't you understand? It's Lind that needs me. If I go, she'll be alone again. Alone forever. No, I belong here."

While her intent seemed absolute, it was met with a sudden wave of heat that filled the air as Yasha's posture tightened, the orange glow in his eyes raging brighter and brighter. The cold of the castle began to break loose as his power swelled, fueled by the torrent in his heart. Suddenly, his body caught fire and flared wildly, making Anna shriek at the inferno, while he spoke to Elsa with guttural tones, his voice shaking the very air around them.

"That ring is not something I placed carelessly when I asked you for your hand. It was until my heart would beat no more," he growled, unable to even imagine his life without her by his side. "I will take you from this place, or I will burn it down around you. Either way, she will not succeed in taking you from me."

Elsa scowled, her eyes flashing as she met his strength with strength. "Lind was right. About everything. You only care about what you want, and you'll do anything for it," she hissed, finding her warm thoughts of him falling away to anger and the fears of betrayal, "But I won't let you have your way anymore. I won't let you betray me."

"If all it takes is a beating heart for your vow, then a frozen one should relieve you of it."

With their powers rattling the hall, Anna felt once more at the victim of extraordinary magic, though she glared at them both now, utterly appalled they would draw them back to a dark place in their past, when the only thing they had for each other was anger and death. "Oh, not this again! Would you two chill out for a second?!" she cried, though now couldn't even get close to Yasha.

The situation was spiraling quickly out of control and she desperately tried to figure out how to diffuse it, but it was his voice that suddenly stalled her, if only because he once more sounded like the dear friend she once knew. "Anna, promise me something," he grunted, obviously bothered by his wound but focusing everything he had on Elsa, "No matter what happens, you must reach Elsa's heart and make sure she does not become like Lind. It may be that you are the only one that can save her."

Anna's heart shook. She could barely react to the ominous tone in his voice. "I really hate it when you have that look in your eyes," she said, hoping she was wrong about the tragedy that was about to happen. "What are you planning?"

A great, shuddering breath escaped him. "There is madness in me. Surely, Elsa suffers it as well," he groaned, looking down to his hands in spite of his instincts, and grimacing at this new depravity of fate upon them, "The FireHeart and the IceHeart are contrary by their nature, and no matter how much I love her, no matter how desperately I cannot bear what I am about to do, it is all I can do."

Slowly, he looked back up, the familiarity of resolve burning in his eyes.

"Never have I hated this miserable Heart so much, or needed its power more than I do now!"

With no other hesitation, he flashed from his place, appearing now in the air, free-falling as he thrust his hands towards the waiting queen, a column of fire more powerful than anything he had ever wielded roaring down and remorselessly enveloping her. Despite the disparity behind his actions and how dangerous his fire had become, Elsa remained detached and raised her hand to meet it, a surge of her own ancient magic tearing into the flames. The meeting of their powers, driven by the full force of their Hearts, burst across the hall as mist, sparks and ice, with such force that even the many trinkets imprisoned by the frost were broken loose and cast about, turning the endlessly frozen world of Lind's castle into chaos, brought forth by the conflict of love between the successors of the IceHeart and the FireHeart.

And Anna looked on, the last of her pleas falling silent in the storm that surged before her.


	12. Ancient Battles Reborn

**XII**

Ancient Battles Reborn

In the great hall, a battle of magic was being fought. Elsa and Yasha, engaged to be married and masters of their respective Hearts, faced off in an echo of their first meeting. The stakes were no longer a simple matter of tasks and fate, but of the future they had promised one another when had vowed to always be together. Lind's will raged powerfully in Elsa, the IceHeart making her powers even more powerful than before, yet they were no longer an overwhelming force against Yasha, who now commanded the full strength of the FireHeart. They were finally equals in magic, even if their cause was absurd. They fought as if it had been written in the stars, though they felt the agony at facing the one they loved, and as neither of them could resist the overwhelming whispers compelling them to assault the other.

It was nothing more than war, empty and emotional.

The clash had rattled the castle to its very core. Anna and the others had retreated from the fight, unable to measure up to the two titans of ancient magic. Their voices were drowned out in the roar of fire and crackle of ice, though they suspected it wouldn't matter anyway. For some strange and terrifying reason, Elsa and Yasha were intent on this fight, and it seemed no one would be able to stop them.

Stepping back from the last volley of fire, Elsa dashed it from the air with a swipe of her hand, her glowing eyes locked on her opponent. Despite the terrible nature of their fight, her face was completely calm. She appeared entirely displaced from the effort of killing her betrothed.

"I'm impressed. This is the strongest your magic has even been. You truly are the master of the FireHeart," she remarked.

Yasha bristled, not feeling flattered in the slightest. "That means nothing if I am forced to use it this way."

"Then tell me something, my dearest Yasha, were you ever going to tell me about it, or were you going to lie to me for the rest of our lives?" she demanded, her emotions finally surging through her voice, even as she tried to suppress them.

While the question had been more passionate that her cold demeanor had yet allowed, his silence made her anger flourish once more. She cawed at his refusal to respond. "No answer? How typical of you. I can't believe how much I trusted you, how much I loved you! And you lied to me!" she cried, still waiting for him to offer some pale excuse or empty justification. For reasons known only to him, he remained silent and she took that as more than enough proof of his villainous faults. Her magic surged around her once more as she quivered, unable to mask the agony his treachery caused.

"You're exactly like Lind says you are. One day, you'll betray me, just as your father betrayed her!" she raged, throwing her hand forward and sending yet another wave of ice at him, which made it through his defenses, as if he no longer had the strength to fight her.

With the drowning cold upon him, he curled up slightly, trembling against her power, until something pulsed back through it, making her wince and wonder what new scheme he had devised. She knew how dangerous he was, him being the warrior she wasn't, and she tried to prepare for his response, even knowing he had always been able to find her weakest points. After a moment of suffering her ice, he revealed his plan, which was nothing more than overflowing rage as he blossomed out of her assault, causing his magic to roar so powerfully that it threw back Elsa's hand and freed him to scream wildly into the frigid air.

"I am not my father!"

The ferocity of his cry made all magic disperse from the hall, with his flames swirling out in giants wisps and hers retreating from the sheer potency of it. Even the others were staring at him as he heaved, while Elsa slowly lowered her hand, feeling her heart raging at the powerful emotions in his eyes.

Only after a moment could he calm down, though he was only barely able to contain the rage at being compared to the despotic King Nazir. "I lied to you. I abused your trust. Day after day, I hid the FireHeart away, even from those I care about most," he admitted, walking towards her, with no magic to shield him and no strategy to unfold. His brazen approach made her take a step back, grimacing at his vulnerability, but she was utterly captured by the way he looked at her, and the way he opened himself to any attack she would offer.

Finally, he stepped before her, standing closer than their life-and-death battle should have allowed. "But I would not…could not ever betray your love, Elsa! You are my everything! I would tear this Heart from my chest to prove it. I would shatter it by your simplest command!"

Elsa panted, her eyes reflecting his passion as fear, even through the glow that had taken them. The way he could still defy all reason and stand before her as her lover, so tried and true, made her animosity for him waver, if only for a moment. "It's all lies," she shouted, as if she didn't truly believe it, for the power of her possession was strong, and she continued to look for the villain in him, "You're lying, just like before. Just like you've always done! How can I ever believe you again?"

"What would you have me say? What would have me do, short of standing aside and letting you slip away from me forever?" he wailed, keeping his magic still and talking to her not as the master of the FireHeart, but as the man that stood ready to lose everything they had fought for, "Is that the cost of my lies? The penance for my sins? To allow you to seal yourself away as Lind has? To never be with you again? I will not pay it! I will not submit to a fate my heart is unable to bear!"

His words were having an effect on her, though she seemed to fight it from somewhere deep within. Being this close to him, with even the urgency to destroy him raging inside, she suddenly wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch him, to see if he were real. They had spent the last few weeks apart, and the last few harrowing moments at each other's throats, but all of it seemed like nothing more than a nightmare, with her wishing to simply wake up next to him and slip warmly back into their waiting life. At the same time, her anger wouldn't subside. Her fury couldn't be calmed. While she loved him and wanted to be with him more than anything, the voices were crying of his inevitable betrayal, something that she saw over and over in her mind as Nazir betrayed Lind.

"You're unbelievably selfish! You want me to believe in you, even when you admit that you lied to me. Where do the lies stop, Yasha? When is it enough?" she cried, then suddenly tore the ring from her finger, holding it up between them as she glared furiously into his eyes.

"And this? Is this a lie too?"

He flinched, staring past the ring with new levels of emotion shaking him.

"Would you truly ask me that?" he asked quietly.

Elsa tried to answer, but couldn't. Her mouth moved with words, but was silent. Shaking her head painfully, she tucked the ring back against her chest and turned from him, looking for answers in places she knew they didn't exist. "I don't know how I can trust you again. How can I? You tell me you love me, that you want to marry me and be my king, then you lie to me, hide things from me, even knowing I don't care about any of it. You say you'll do anything I want, but then won't let me decide if I want to stay with Lind," she ranted, pacing slightly before turning back to him, heaving at the toll this was taking on her heart.

She searched him against for quiet answers, then felt the glow in her eyes react to his fury, making the possession strengthen once more as she took a step back. "She's right. You'll betray me. You'll keep lying to me. One day, you'll disappear again and leave me alone."

"I don't want it, Yasha. I don't want to see the day where I have to lose you!"

The sad fears once more surged out of her as she threw her magic against him, so close he barely had enough time to defend himself. Encased in a shell of ice, he sailed back until a powerful burst of fire freed him, letting him regain his footing and face her once more. She wasted no time in sending wave after wave of magic at him, throwing her hands forward in a painful rage, while he traded his time between dodging them and cutting them out of the air with his flaming hands. With words failing them, it became an argument of power, with neither of them knowing how to reach the other or even if their respective victory would bring them the end they wanted.

There were only the emotions between lovers, and they raged as powerfully as the fire and ice that continued to rattle the hall of Lind's castle.

"Man, can you even call this a lover's quarrel? They're trying to kill each other because they don't want to live without each other!" Anna cried from behind a thick pillar of frozen stone, trying to peek out at the battle between the two closest in her heart, yet was unable to do anything more than watch. "These two needs some serious counseling!"

"Counseling? Who would be crazy enough to get in between that?" Kristoff called back, tucked behind an adjacent pillar as well.

While the question made perfect sense, Anna glared out from her shelter, her eyes focusing through the raging might of ancient magic, while her heart thundered loudly in her ears.

Soon enough, she planned on answering that.

Elsa and Yasha continued their stalemate. His careful control of power was balanced only by his martial prowess, as he desperately tried to figure out a way to stop Elsa without hurting her, despite the overtures of his FireHeart. He walked a fine line, where a simple mistake would break them apart forever. Even embracing his own destruction to save her offered no solace, for it would still mean he would never be with her again, and he cursed the spectral fate he thought was defeated with Nazir. Strangely, he could also sense she wasn't using her full powers, though he couldn't gauge to what extent. While that should have given him hope, there was little to be found.

Despite the absurdity of it, they continued to fight each other.

Suddenly, as he stood ready to fend off another of her attacks, his vision became blurry and his entire side went numb, making him lurch with a gasp, dropping down to his knee as his hand covered the wound that his magic was barely keeping together. The blood had run down the entire length of his coat and slicked sickeningly against his leg. His skin was pale and clammy and his lips had darkened. Lind's malice was finally catching up with him and he was amazed he had been able to go on for as long as he had, though when it came to saving the woman he loved, he cursed not being able to go further.

"Not now. Do not fail me now, wretched strength," he growled, trying to gather that strength as he would his magic, though found while the unending fire would still come, his body was betraying him at the moment when he needed to succeed most.

Angry at the recall of fate, he slowly looked up and found Elsa standing over him, her glowing hand raised out and her eyes coldly seeking his death. "Farewell, my beloved," she said plainly, but was interrupted as Anna came sliding in between them, facing Elsa with her arms raised out and a very determined look on her face.

"Stop, Elsa, or you really will kill him!" she cried.

Elsa flinched. She looked to Anna with a mixture of anger and fear, her hand wavering as it pointed at her chest, then felt the will in her Heart surge again and compel her to destroy her love.

"It's his choice, Anna. Now move," she commanded, the glow on her hand churning impatiently.

"Not until you come to your senses!" she fired back, taking a step forward, which made Elsa take a step back, "Is this what you want? To hurt those that love you, then spend the rest of your life alone and frozen in this place? This is just like running away to your mountain again! I didn't let you go then, and I won't let you go now!"

Seething, Elsa looked between her and Yasha, trying to fight the muddy anger in her mind. She had been so confident of her actions that Anna's interruption felt like another betrayal, yet pointing her magic willingly at her sister sent shivers through her. It was supposed to be so easy. She would stay with Lind and be happy, while the world would go on without her. A part of her couldn't understand their resistance to her plans, while something else was screaming at her to lower her hand and spare Anna the wrath that had brought her lover so close to death.

In the end, the glow in her eyes asserted itself over her wailing heart. She glared wickedly at Anna and flared her hand at her.

"I'm warning you. If you won't move..."

Suddenly, Kristoff appeared at her side and grabbed her, feeling a flash of cold over him from her magic, but unwilling to let her do anything to hurt Anna. "Stop this, Elsa! This isn't you!" he pleaded, grunting against the frost that crawled over him.

At the same time, Johann grabbed her from the other side, feeling the same grip of ice, but also refused to let her slide into a fate of despair. "Please come to your senses, Your Majesty!" he groaned. Even Olaf, Sven and Sid joined in, with the sprite hovering before Anna, the reindeer hunched down defensively and the snowman clutching to Elsa's legs, looking up in a panic.

"Ohhhh, I'm strangely okay with you wanting to turn that guy into an ice cube, but you have to stop!" Olaf whined.

The feeling of them holding her and the panic in their voices rattled her. Elsa struggled in their grasp for a moment, her magic stalled, until she suddenly cried out, making a flash of magic knock them away from her. With them thrown away harshly, they all stared at the queen, wondering what strange magic could cause her to act so wildly, while she looked around at them all, panting and unsure. "Why are you all stopping me? I've made my choice! I want to stay with Lind! Why won't you listen to what I want?" Elsa wailed, though her eyes ultimately back forward, where Anna was staring forward, calm in spite of the dire situation.

A moment passed as everyone tried to find their footing. Elsa's demands were tenuous, but carried the weight of her resolve. Even though they trusted their cause, it was difficult to face the power in her voice, even when they knew this wasn't the Elsa they knew.

Ultimately, they had to deny her demands, spearheaded by the always practical tone that lingered in Anna's voice. "We are listening, Elsa. We're listening to your heart," she said, stepping towards her trembling sister, her loving smile cutting through the fear, just as it had always done, "This IceHeart might be inside of you, but so is your real heart." Her smile grew at the sight before her, and she suddenly felt like she was talking to her real sister.

"If this is really what you want, why are you crying?"

Elsa's hand shot up to her cheek and she felt the warm tears coming down. It made her gasp. "Crying?" she whimpered, looking around as if she had no idea where she was or what she was doing, then moved her fearful eyes back, "Anna? What have I…?"

Anna was shocked by her shift in behavior and tried to reach for her, but Elsa threw a hand out, startling her and stopping her approach. Shaking her head and taking a few steps backwards, Elsa then hugged herself as a way to keep her hands occupied. The glow in her eyes hadn't subsided, but Anna's pleas were powerful, fighting away the violent whispers in her mind. Once more, everything seemed like a hazy nightmare, throwing her world into chaos and scorching her reunion with her lost fiancée. She had even threatened Anna, something she had never thought possible, yet her sister still stood before her, offering all of the love that had so often defeated her fears. It made the pale possession in her heart seem feeble, if only because love so often conquered all.

Suddenly, after looking around and seeing the aftermath of the battle, where the ice and fire had marked the hall, Elsa whimpered, her fingers across her lips as her eyes fell upon her wounded lover.

"Oh Yasha, what have I done?" she whispered.

Though suffering his grievous wound, he pushed himself to his feet, empowered by the glimpse of the woman he loved so dearly. "Elsa."

There was a slight intermission to the catastrophe around them. Elsa was still unstable, though showed glimpses of her true self. The others had gathered before her as well, offering her the entirety of her world, while she looked between them all, suffering the weight of her actions. She had hurt so many, yet they stood before her, calling her back to them with nothing more than the love they wanted to share. It was such a beautiful, terrifying thing, yet she wanted to reach out for it, to accept their forgiveness and find her happiness once more. That sentiment was especially powerful as she looked between her sister and her lover, realizing that if she were to simply return home now, she would have everything she had ever wanted.

Her lips parted to whisper a thousand sorrowful words to them and ask if she could truly be forgiven.

_"Elsa, my child."_

A different voice pierced the atmosphere of the hall. While it sent a wave of apprehension through all, it seemed to physically strike Elsa, as the glow in her eyes overtook the glimmer of her true self. From the depths of the castle, Lind walked out, casting a fierce glare over the invaders that sought to take away her prize. Anna was instantly aware of the raging Yasha as he stepped next to her, still suffering his wound, but she found she couldn't take her eyes away from the beautiful woman and how much she reminded her of Elsa.

"Is that…?" Anna gasped.

Yasha once more cursed his weakened state.

"Lind," he growled.

Although the intruders to her realm were many and powerful, Lind let her attention settle where it needed to be most, on the avatar of her fate, who stood trembling before her. "Why are you hesitating, Elsa? Isn't your heart telling you to leave them behind and stay here forever? You mustn't let them dictate the life you should lead. You mustn't give them a chance to betray you. You must follow your heart, and remain here with me," she sang softly, coming within a few steps of the wavering queen.

Where she had been so free only moments before, Elsa suddenly fell back into her trance, her expression fading and her eyes glowing.

"Yes," she replied, stepping closer to Lind.

Her movement back to Lind made Yasha lurch forward, throwing aside his condition to prevent her from slipping away once more. "Do not listen to her, Elsa! She will mislead you and…" he pleaded, then suddenly felt a hand across his chest, pushing against his pursuit. Aghast, he looked to Anna, who was looking at him with the most bizarre expression on her face. It made him flinch. "Anna? What are you doing?" he gasped, then watched as Elsa drew closer to Lind, then disappeared into a tower of ice that enveloped them both, which only fueled his panic.

"Elsa!"

"If you keep going, you'll kill yourself, Yasha!" Anna yelled, pushing against his chest once more, then addressing the horror in his eyes with a calm, careful breath. "I trust Elsa. I trust in her heart. Didn't you see the look on her face? That's not the same look as before. She's there, deciding for herself what path to choose."

As she looked back to the column of ice, she knew this was one of the greatest risks she had ever taken, but she knew they were in no position to face Lind, or Elsa while she suffered whatever was making her act so strangely.

Yet she had seen Elsa standing there, fighting against a destiny of loneliness, and had to believe in her sister.

Yasha panted, staring into Anna's eyes. He had no idea how she could be so calm when Elsa stood ready to be taken from them. "Are you mad? It is the IceHeart she hears! You do not know its influence," he ranted wildly, then suddenly felt a paralyzing pain shoot through him, making him grunt loudly and fall forward, where Anna caught him and helped him stay standing.

"Calm down! You're going to tear yourself in half!" she cried, losing a bit of her composure as she saw fresh blood soaking into his coat.

Yasha didn't care for it. He continued to groan painfully, watching the love of his life draw farther away, but was equally committed to doing anything he could to save her, even as he weakly clutched to Anna for support. "Try to understand, Anna. When Lind came to me, I realized the IceHeart was a danger to Elsa. If it were ever destroyed, she would die along with it. I could not bear the thought. So I followed Lind's design, hoping that if Elsa could claim the IceHeart as I have claimed the FireHeart, not even she could harm her. We would finally be free of that past," he explained, looking to her with pathetic eyes and relying on her to keep him on his feet, though was secretly glad it was her that held him up. "I had forgotten how powerful the call of the Heart is, and now Elsa has turned into the monster I once was."

"I am such a fool."

Anna smirked. "Yep, you're an idiot, but not because of what you're willing to do for Elsa or because you lied about the FireHeart all this time, which by the way, I'm so going to hurt you later," she seethed. He exhaled slowly, accepting her anger, while she continued to berate him. "You're an idiot because you tried to do this alone, and you ended up making things way worse than they had to be. If you had told Elsa and me about Lind instead of sneaking off in the night, we could have found a way to deal with this IceHeart thing together. I mean, only a total moron would go about this the way you did. A complete and colossal jerk that…."

"Point taken," he interrupted sharply.

"Anyway, the bottom line is simple. Trust Elsa. More than anyone, you should know not to underestimate her," Anna continued, watching him waver but showing him she wouldn't accept his doubts. Once more, she marveled at how weak he could be about Elsa, when he was overwhelmingly strong about her as well.

"She won't lose to Lind or the IceHeart," she added, looking back to the tower of ice.

"She'll win."

Yasha panted, leaning on her heavily and looking to the tower as well. Now that he wasn't using his magic to fight, managing the wound was easier, yet he knew he had no chance at forcing Elsa from Lind. Like so many times in his life, he was devastated by his inability to fight fate, with even Anna's words failing to calm his raging heart. All he knew was he was too weak to save the woman he loved, despite the invincible power of the FireHeart.

"You ask too much. I cannot simply do nothing," he admitted painfully, "I do not have that strength."

Anna smiled, happy to be the one that could support him when he was the most unconquerable person she had ever known. "Then you'll just have to trust in me. I'll be strong enough for us both," she replied, adjusting her hold on him to allow them both to look on, where she knew they would see Elsa again; the Elsa they both loved.

"I know she'll listen to her real heart. Because that's what love is."

"Trust in the heart."


	13. IceHeart

**XIII**

IceHeart

Upon retreating into Lind's frozen tower, Elsa stood alone among countless mirrors of ice, with an eternal landscape of reflection stretching out around her and her own conflicted face staring back. The tower was much like the interior of the IceHeart, bleak and sterile. There was the same misty fog all around and no sign of Lind, leaving her to look among the innumerable reflections for answers to the questions in her heart, which were equally infinite and scattered.

Only after she had a moment to catch her breath and focus her mind did Elsa actually see what she had become. The woman she saw staring back made her gasp loudly, running her fingers through her hair and over her dark lips. So many times in her past, she had looked in the mirror and didn't know who was looking back, but the memories of her actions against those she loved burned fiercely within, making her recoil from the image, only to realize there was no escape for and the dark Snow Queen had surrounded her.

Looking around, she desperately wished to have help from those she had just been so wickedly assaulting.

"What's wrong, Elsa?" a voice suddenly said through the mists. While the frightened Snow Queen looked around for the source, one of the reflections suddenly stepped from the ice, instantly becoming Lind as she did. "I thought you had shed the illusions and lies. I thought you had come to see the sanctuary I'm offering you."

Elsa whirled to Lind, appearing afraid of her for a moment, but then calmed herself with a few shuddering breaths. "What did you do to me? What happened inside of the IceHeart that made me this way?" she demanded, presenting her streaked hair with trembling fingers.

Lind's expression was far cooler than before. "I did nothing to you. The Heart simply gave you what you needed to master it," she replied, not at all offended by her appearance. "Do you remember what happened to that child when he mastered the FireHeart? He embraced passion. He embodied the flame. It's the same for you. You can now see the truth through the lies. You can face the world with a calm mind and calm heart, not swayed by the moment."

"Surely you can now see why it was necessary to cast off your chains and embrace the freedom of heart I'm offering you here."

The terror in her words made Elsa exhale shakily, looking away fearfully and feeling the battle going on her heart. It was easy to hear her message. A lifetime of fear and loss advocated the allure of solitude, just as before. Even embracing Anna once more and finding love with Yasha hadn't spared her from the sporadic agony that sometimes pierced the joy, framing Lind's salvation as the ultimate escape from pain, set deeply within the protection of the ice and cold. The remorse she felt at lashing out at them only drew her closer to the ice, yet there was no amount of cold that could smother the heat she felt in her heart by the simple thought of them, in spite of the fact that they might never forgive her for what she had done.

Spinning around, she faced Lind once more, though she still suffered the unsteadiness in her voice. "I can't just walk away. Don't you see? It breaks my heart to think I'll never see them again," she groaned, not finding any support from Lind's cold expression, then wilting to the side as she scrutinized her hands. "I don't know why I thought this would be easy, or why I felt so angry with them. And the things I did…"

"It's false," Lind replied, "No matter how much you love them, they'll hurt you in the end. One day, they'll go away and leave you alone, sad and forgotten. You've seen it happen. I just want to spare you those terrible feelings."

"I have those feelings now!" Elsa cried, pacing slightly, "Instead of waiting for them to leave me, you're asking me to do the same thing. How is that different? How do I spare myself the pain of losing the ones I love when I'm the one that's causing it?"

"You'll endure it, like the flawless sheets of ice that cover this place. Timeless, without pain or suffering. It all goes away in time, the feelings of betrayal, the memories. Isn't that what you want? To never feel the pain of losing your loved ones?" Lind suggested smoothly.

Elsa winced. It was what she wanted. It was what she had always wanted. The feelings she had when she fought with Yasha or argued with Anna were some of the most chilling things she had ever experienced, even more than losing control over her powers. Her powers were something tangible, a thing she could blame. The spectrum of emotion that came from loving someone was ethereal, and was never as simple as good or bad.

Love was itself the most terrifying thing she had ever known, for it made her suffer the dark days with the bright ones, never letting her simply slip a glove over her heart or run away to solitude.

At once, Elsa found her answer. It had been there all along. The reason she couldn't simply escape the terrors of her life were because they were intricately tied to the joys, and that slipping into the gray area between them was no salvation, but a prison sentence. It also reminded her why she shouldn't fear going back to those she had wronged, for she knew they loved her just as deeply as she loved them, and that they would forgive her.

She knew it, because they had already come this far to bring her back.

"Not if it means never loving anyone again," she replied, strongly instead of fearfully, "I've already lived that life. I sealed myself away from everyone, to spare them and myself the pain of these powers. And in the end, it didn't make me happy. It made me miserable."

Lind didn't like this renewed sense of self. She started to feel her slipping from her grasp.

"Elsa…" she sang softly, trying to establish her grip on her again.

In spite of her more seductive tone, Elsa remained focused, not only on her own fate but also on the fate of the immortal before her. "But you've done it for much longer, Lind. You've forgotten what it's like to have someone you love chase you down and tell you how much they need you. You've forgotten what it's like to have someone sacrifice everything just so you could be together. You've forgotten what it's like to love, and I feel sorry for you because of it," she remarked.

"You feel sorry for me?" Lind scoffed, anger scorching her cold expression.

"I do," Elsa answered, feeling genuine pity for the path that had led her to that isolated place. "I know you've had this terrible life and suffered more than I could ever stand. But sealing yourself away from the world and spending eternity alone? That's something worse. And you didn't have anyone to run after you and show you how wrong it is. You didn't have anyone showing you how love is more powerful than any magic, and it makes me pity you and this cold shell you've created around yourself."

"This isn't a sanctuary, Lind. It's a tomb."

Lind seethed. The dominion of the IceHeart and the fortress of ice around them should have kept Elsa from showing this much resistance to her will, yet even when it should have been a matter of embracing within the eternal ice and letting the world slip away, Elsa was clinging to her life. She knew where the blame lay. It was the sister who stubbornly refused to stay away and the lover that was far more resilient than she expected. It was those that chased after her no matter the price, not to punish her for her actions or even make fragile overtures, but rather to demand that Elsa stay with them. Part of her understood the selfishness in that, yet another part of her was jealous. Only once in her life had she experienced unfettered love, when common expectation and etiquette were thrown aside for the demand of the heart. In the end, she had lost her love and ended up alone. That pain still stung her deeply. To see her child still walking a path with others at her side made her jealousy flare brighter than her desire for their destiny together, with an angry power burning brightly in her eyes as she slowly reached her hand out to her rebellious successor.

Suddenly, she would no longer give Elsa the choice.

"Fortunately, I don't need your pity, child. I only need you," she snarled, causing a powerful glow to envelop Elsa with a painful groan. Gone was the hopeful heart that had longed for an eternal companion. There would be no more appeals. There was only Lind's will, and the power of the IceHeart that now flowed through Elsa's body.

"You will stay with me."

"Forever."

Elsa couldn't move. Her body felt like it was covered in unyielding ice and a shiver ran through her. While the voice of the IceHeart had been calmed since emerging, that clarity was now a scream once more, making her realize she had never really mastered the Heart. Everything had been according to Lind's design, including her ability to control her body and sway her mind. She knew Lind's wishes weren't false, at least when it came to her desire to no longer be alone, but the price she was asking was too high, for Elsa was not only unwilling to give up those she loved, but completely unable. Like being washed of the muddy influence of the IceHeart, her mind was suddenly clear. It was impossible to give up her sister's love. It was impossible to forget her future with Yasha. It was impossible to ignore the life she had in spite of all the risks, for she was many things to so many people and didn't have the option of simply disappearing from the world.

Despite the lies and the sins, she knew she had to step back into that world and face those she loved, even if it meant condemning Lind to her continued solitude, for like the power of fate, there was something in her life that seemed to dictate her actions, as if she had no command over her own destiny.

The proprietor of her heart was love.

"No, I won't," Elsa groaned, resisting Lind's will with all of her strength until her efforts finally resonated through their connection and a resounding crack echoed through the tower, making every icy mirror shatter into countless shards around them and fill the air with a snowstorm of sparkling glass. The sudden break made Elsa's glowing body go limp, while Lind's became stiff, her eyes shot into the air as an airless breath croaked through her throat. The attack had been so subversive that she hadn't even noticed, yet the effect was instant as the immortal woman began to bleach white, just as her many dolls had done before. She had no strength to ask why or even look to her quiet child, but could only stare up into the swirling storm of glass as centuries of life were washed from her, all brought forth by the single sound that had echoed within a lonely chamber of the castle.

Set behind a door locked by ice, where no one was around to witness it, the IceHeart lay silently on the floor, shattered into countless pieces as the last act of Elsa's beating heart.

Back in the main hall, the tower of ice suddenly shattered as well, startling the onlookers that had been anxiously waiting for Elsa's reappearance. From inside the tower, there was only a single figure, who collapsed instantly as the ice dispelled, her radiant form spread across the frozen floor of the castle, quiet and still.

"Elsa!" Anna screamed as she led the charge to her sister's quiet figure, though it was Yasha that arrived first as he suddenly appeared out of a burst of flames, his wounds forgotten and his face seized by a look of utter terror.

"Elsa? Elsa!" Yasha cried, pulling Elsa to him and looking over her face fearfully.

Her appearance had returned to normal, with all of the darkness gone from her hair and skin, though the way she laid limply in his arms told him of her fate and what she had ultimately chosen. Both his shattering heart and the retiring FireHeart revealed the consequences of her choice, for he no longer felt the repulsion at her power, or even the presence of her power at all. It made a low groan escape his throat as he touched her serene face and the others joined him at her side.

"She's all right, right?" Anna stammered, dropping to her knees and taking her sister's hand, though she instantly winced and felt the panic run rampant through her chest. "She's as cold as ice!"

The others joined her in a circle around their queen, but emotions were high and voices were quiet.

Everything was moving faster than Anna could keep up with and suddenly the frigid air was blasted with a hot draft and a bright light appeared above her sister's motionless chest. Cupped in a trembling hand, Yasha was stoking a ball of flame. The fire wasn't like the fire from before, for it was intense and potent, though just the sight of it made Anna's panic rise, for she had no idea what he had planned.

"Wait, what are you doing?!" she cried.

"If she has destroyed the IceHeart, then she will die, just as I did," he replied shakily, for any semblance of control he had left was rapidly slipping away at the nightmare that was before him. He had no use for questions now about Lind or what had transpired within the tower of ice. There was only one truth before him, and that was he couldn't bear the thought of Elsa dying in his arms.

"I will give her the FireHeart and force her to live."

Anna's breath shivered through her lips, her eyes moving between them. She couldn't stand the idea of losing her sister, but there was something unnaturally frightening about his plan. It was reflected in the resolute glow in his eyes.

"What happens to you if you give her the FireHeart?" she choked quietly, almost not wanting to know the answer.

Yasha had no reply, and continued to offer his Heart to Elsa.

The totality in his silence made her tremble. This was a choice she feared above all others, to exchange the life of a person she loved for a person she loved. In truth, she knew she couldn't actually stop him, but there was so much uncertainty in his plan that she instinctively reached out and grabbed his arm, though she was completely unsure how to proceed.

"Yasha…" she stuttered, though lost her objection.

Without even addressing Anna's tortured attempt to appeal to him, all of his remaining strength was focused on handling his Heart in some way to bring Elsa back. Giving up his life for hers was beyond debate, though he recognized how bitter that nobility was. This was the fate he had wished to avoid by helping Lind, to sever her chain that was tied to the IceHeart, yet had been unavoidable due to his stupidity and refusal to seek help. Now he would have the chance to make the ultimate sacrifice for love, yet dismissed the sentiment entirely, for it also meant he wouldn't be with those he loved ever again, as well as bringing sadness into their lives. Imagining Elsa living her life in regret of his actions made his chest clench, but he had gone far beyond hoping for their storybook fantasy. If he simply had to choose, he would choose her life above his, with no regard to sadness and tears.

He also truly couldn't imagine living without her.

"Be the love she needs, Anna," Yasha suddenly whispered, drawing her eyes to his as he continued to gaze on Elsa's quiet face, betraying just how much he resented the fate he had brought upon himself.

"And tell her…that I…"

As Yasha continued to construct his noble sacrifice and think of some inspiring last words that might soothe Elsa's remorse, there was a flash of blue light next to them as Lind appeared, her image ghostly and her hand over Elsa's heart. The burst of cold air extinguished the FireHeart and startled everyone who gathered there, most especially Yasha, who glared at her with fresh wrath washing through his eyes.

"Whoa, ghost!" Anna yelped as she jumped back slightly.

There was a strange gentleness in the woman's face as she looked down at Elsa. She seemed different than before. Released. After a moment, her eyes slowly lifted to the raging lover of her child, finding his wrathful expression still so nostalgic. "That's enough, son of Alexei. You cannot hope to draw fire from ice or replace one Heart with another," she warned, watching the fury and the despair battle in his glowing eyes, though her expression remained soft and she looked back to Elsa with a strange sort of smile on her face. "But this child has reminded me of what it was to love, and I must thank her for it. It seems the least I can do."

The spectators to the strange scene were stunned as Lind placed her finger at Elsa's chest, where a point of blue light remained and slowly merged with her. The glow coursed through her body as strange runes, just as it had been with Yasha at his death, though the glow then disappeared into her body and there was a heavy silence that followed.

The only one that didn't look concerned was Lind. "Just as you harbor the last spark of Alexei's Heart, so will I give the last of mine to her," she said, reaching up to touch Elsa's face, like a parent admiring how beautiful their child truly was.

"Live, Elsa, and be happy."

As if reacting, Elsa suddenly sucked in a sharp breath, her back rising from the ground. As the life Lind promised fully took her, she suddenly fell back, moaning slightly as her hand made its way up to her face and the strange sensation of life once more coursed through her body. The others were stunned in silence and stared on as she began to feel the world come into focus once more. "What happened?" she groaned, then suddenly grunted as she felt herself seized by two powerful arms, so surprised at his frantic embrace that her eyes fluttered up and his name escaped her lips as more of a mumble than anything.

"Yasha?"

He didn't answer, only clung to her while hiding from the world, though the relief from the others was apparent as they all sighed in relief, punctuated by Anna's teary laughter. "I guess the fiancée gets first dibs on hugs," she remarked, trying as hard as she could to give them their moment.

Elsa still had no idea what exactly was going on, but soon felt the tremors running through his body and still tried to look at him, though his tight grip denied her any glance of his face. She had never seen him so shaken and barely knew how to react.

"I thought I had lost you," he whispered, adjusting his grip slightly and still demanding all of her, until finally he let out a shuddering breath and leaned back, revealing the tears at his eyes and the residual horror on his face. It was another first, for she had never seen such emotion on him, but after realizing how far they had come between his absence, her descent and their terrible reunion, being able to linger in his arms and see him made a smile cross her face, for she didn't care how they got to that point, but that they were together again.

With nothing else to say, she slipped her arms around him and embraced him back, feeling tears of her own, even as she laughed happily within his grasp.

The true reunion between Elsa and Yasha dominated the scene for a moment longer, until Anna felt she couldn't hold back anymore and laid her hand across Elsa's, which was thankfully warm once more. "Welcome back," she said, almost regretting that she had to ruin their moment. Elsa's eyes fluttered open and she was pulled from her tranquility, though seeing her sister only added to her joy and she closed her hand around hers.

"Thank you, Anna. For not letting me run away," she said, smiling widely at being able to have everything she wanted in her life. "Again."

"Hey, what are sisters for?" Anna responded with a laugh, but then sighed and sat back, running her hands over her stomach, "But let's not do this a third time. I think I might have turned this little guy into a milkshake from all of this running around."

Elsa laughed as well, nodding into Yasha's shoulder. The entire affair had resolved itself so quickly that she had trouble accepting where she sat, yet after taking a look around at everyone and feeling the touch of those she loved most, she resolved not to complain. Even if it were a dream, she would enjoy the feeling of owning the world.

Suddenly, the glowing figure of Lind reasserted itself and snared everyone's attention. Elsa broke away from Yasha long enough to turn to her, surprised at her ghostly appearance. "Lind?" she asked, feeling sadness at her broken fate. The name made a wave of tension tighten Yasha's grasp on her, as if the fallen immortal would once more steal her away, but a soft glance from Elsa diffused his anger enough to keep him still, allowing her to address her lingering moments in this world.

"I'm sorry, Elsa," Lind said simply, trying to smile but finding it difficult to appeal to her, "You were right about me. I've been alone so long that I forgot what it meant to love someone. Maybe I really am just like Alexei, a cruel monster that only cares for herself, so much that I would even sacrifice the one who bears my powers."

"I hope someday you can find it in your heart to forgive me for all I've done to you."

Elsa frowned slightly at the apology. Knowing what she knew of the woman, it was difficult to dismiss her as some heartless villain that deserved her anger. Even her opinion of Nazir had been changed by the details of their past and the way their love had shattered, just as her love for Yasha almost had. Feeling terrified at just how close she had come to following Lind's path, she glanced to Anna, who was still holding her hand. Her sister had been the bulwark against fate once more, standing fearless against her possessed determination to destroy her beloved and always chasing after her with nothing but love in her eyes. Even as Yasha fell into the currents of the past and followed his father's path, it was Anna that brought him back as well, proving that even without the benefit of ancient magic and pedigree, she was possibly the most powerful of them all.

Inwardly, she made it a point to tell her sister how much she loved her.

"I forgive you, Lind. And I don't think you're a monster. It's hard to be alone. I only wish I could have done something to help you," Elsa said as she and Yasha were helped to their feet by Anna and the others. The reunited group faced Lind with a mixture of emotions, but Elsa's stood at their bow and looked at the ghost with sympathy.

She was confident that they would understand once she had the chance to tell them Lind's story.

Lind smiled at her clemency, but ultimately shook her head. "You've done enough. The IceHeart is yours now. Use it as you see fit," she said, feeling strange now that she was freed from her fate and the connection to the ancient Heart. It had been so long since she felt like herself that it made it difficult to maintain her frigid demeanor, but as she looked upon the group of companions that gathered around her child, she decided that her reign as the Ice Witch was happily coming to an end.

Her resignation of forever was especially potent as she looked at Elsa and Yasha, who remained closely in each other's grasp, something that made her feel lonely and generous. "It's ironic that you two would find each other, when Alexei and I could not. We created our Hearts together, and they drove us apart. Now, as the two of you have inherited them, I only hope you don't suffer our same fate."

Fueled by Lind's sad expression and even sadder life, Elsa tightened her grip on Yasha and looked to him, barely able to imagine how only moments ago they had been at each other's throat. Even with the IceHeart inside, that animosity had fallen under the wave of love she felt, as if even the ancient demands of the two Hearts were incapable of eclipsing their renewed connection. Resolutely, she swore that they would never relive the terrible fate that had broken Lind and Alexei, even with their differences.

Even the lingering anger at his lies were dismissed, for she only wanted to love him at that moment, with no petty distractions of immortal feuds.

"We won't," she answered.

Lind watched the glances between them and felt an even deeper longing, so much that she also began to bury the past and the pains in her heart. Instead, she began to focus what strength she had left to satisfy a selfish desire that had begun to burn in her chest. "My time is running short, and though I know I have no right to ask anything of you, would you grant me one last favor before I fade away from this world?" she asked.

As the glow around her body began to blur her image, a corresponding glow appeared at Elsa's chest, signaling that the redemption of the immortal Lind would carry one last price, though it would be one that could only be paid if Elsa was willing to carry the burden just a bit further.

"There is one last place I need to go…and someone I need to meet."


	14. A Return to the Beginning

**XIV**

A Return to the Beginning

After the designs of the immortal Lind were defeated in the frozen kingdom of Lapland, Queen Elsa returned to Arendelle, accompanied by those that had chased after her, along with the wayward fiancée she had found in the villain's lair. Their homecoming was awkward and strange, with questions about Yasha's disappearance and Elsa's violent departure, but the efforts of Anna went a long way to smooth over the kingdom's reception, with most eager to see things return to normal. The formal apology from the future king and queen marked their honest remorse, and soon things began to fall back into place, especially with the excitement for the royal wedding once more sparking the air.

Anna took the opportunity to rest for several days, demanding everything at a whim in light of her victory, and feeling smug as everyone jumped at her every command. A steady supply of pickles streamed into the castle and Elsa tested out her new affinity to the IceHeart by keeping a full stock of ice cream to go with them. While Kristoff ran about with Sven, trying to fulfill his wife's every desire, the relationship between Olaf and Sid returned to its strangely antagonistic state, with the snowman chasing the sprite in desperate obsession, even as a few sharp comments still punctuated his overtures for her as an echo of the animosity that existed between the IceHeart and the FireHeart. Johann returned the duties of baron to Yasha, feeling proud he had managed to protect those he had to protect, as well as holding to a few secrets he still held in his heart. The foundation of the kingdom had been rattled by the legacy of the IceHeart, but had endured it all, wound tightly around the radiant queen that now inherited the ancient magic in full.

Everything seemed resolved, until one day the queen and the baron once more disappeared, their journey known only by a select few.

Traveling alone on foot, Elsa and Yasha made their way to the Weeping Valley at a slow pace, relying on his knowledge and skills he had honed in the years of his exile. With the warm weather and casual pace, it was a far different journey than the one before, the one that had started them on their path together. In spite of the objections, they chose to retrace their path without an escort, spending some much needed time alone, for while they renewed the warmth that their love demanded, there were many things to talk about and many issues to address, some so deep they couldn't be simply ignored out of reverence for their hearts. The IceHeart and the FireHeart were theirs to command, yet it was no longer so simple to be together. Like wild creatures buried in their chests, the two orbs had wills of their own and though they were subdued compared to before, the repulsion of their powers was something they would now always live with, constantly threatening to pull them into the trench of the past and relive the tragedy of Lind and Alexei.

Yet even the ancient wills of the two Hearts weren't enough to conquer the love they had fought for.

If anything, it only made them fight harder to be together.

"You are sure there are no odd effects of having touched the FireHeart? No orange in your eyes or flames appearing in your hand?" Yasha remarked as he led Elsa into the caves, following the familiar blue glow of the moss and the dead limbs of forgotten torches on the walls.

Elsa smirked. "Well, even if there was, maybe I'd just keep it a secret for a few years and then surprise you. Maybe when you least expect it, like when you're fast asleep," she replied as she watched him turn to her, a bit of concern twisting his expression. She found it adorable and put her fingers to his brow, emulating an explosion of righteous fire she would bring on him.

"Poof…no more eyebrows."

Yasha sighed, knowing he was going to have to endure a lifetime of her subtle revenge. "I understand your anger at my keeping the FireHeart a secret, but I would appreciate it if you would spare my eyebrows any such fate," he replied.

Elsa was amused for a moment, though her smile fell away. While she had spent every moment since Lapland distracting herself with him, she still resented the fact he had lied to her. The anger when under the possession of the IceHeart had been amplified at the time, but wasn't totally false. Even now, on their intimate journey with nothing to bother them, she still had trouble burying her feelings when thinking of it. "Why did you keep it a secret? Why didn't you just tell me?" she asked, stopping in the dim lights of the cave and demanding his honest answer.

He came to a stop, not facing her. While appreciating the loftier approach she had for his behavior, he knew this was a conversation he couldn't avoid forever, and wanted to make peace with her about it.

"When we first met, I did everything I could to convince you that the FireHeart was evil and that it did not belong in this world. When I found it suddenly a part of me, I resented it, even as I still felt its allure. And I feared that you might always consider it wicked, and I along with it," he sighed, avoiding her gaze until finally he had no choice but to face her, appearing uncharacteristically timid in light of her warranted scowl. "It seems like a pale excuse now, but as I became unable to imagine my life without you, I could not justify giving you any reason to think less of me."

"So you hid the FireHeart from me so I wouldn't see you as the same as your father," she summarized, her tone betraying how flimsy she found his excuse.

He was very submissive to her tone. "Admittedly, retrospection has given me great insight into some of my more questionable choices."

With an excuse greatly inferior to his sin, she crossed her arms over her chest, wondering why she found it so easy to accept it anyway. The rational part of her saw why he would have such reservations, though she couldn't agree with them. The way he offered penitence for his crimes was very much like him as well and she fell victim to the special place he had in her heart, the one that could forgive him no matter what he did. "Anna's right. You are a drama queen. But that's one of the reasons I fell in love with you," she remarked, stepping forward sternly and keeping her arms tightly crossed in a bid to lord her authority over him, until she got close and placed one of her slender fingers firmly into his chest. "I'm also sure you realize what I'll do to you if you ever lie to me again. Missing eyebrows will be the least of your problems."

Yasha gazed back with an enigmatic expression, but took the opportunity to answer her from the bottom of his heart, where none of his masks would apply.

"I will always endeavor to be honest with you, Elsa."

Even when she had him completely at her mercy, he still wouldn't swear total adherence to the truth, and she strangely understood why. Yasha would always have a shadow within, a dark part of him that did whatever he thought was necessary in order to uphold his complex sense of honor, or to protect what he wanted to protect. From the first moment she had known him, this had never changed, and she wasn't sure she could ever see him as the storybook version of a dashing prince in unblemished robes, especially as she so secretly loved his flaws. For the complex world they lived in, it required a complex man to stand against it, and there was one element of his honesty that she never doubted, not even for a second.

At the very least, she knew she would never have to doubt him when he told her that he loved her.

"That's very much like you, you know," she mused, reflecting on his inability to offer shallow promises of perfection, though she could tell by his expression that he hadn't been following her line of thought. She forgave him that also. As long as they were together, she would chase the shadows from him and make him a better man, for while the commitment of forever was one she hadn't been able to accept from Lind, the one she embraced from Yasha came without hesitation, bound as tightly around her heart as was the mystical ring that bound her finger.

After addressing his concealment of the FireHeart, the two of them continued on through the caves, still feeling the residual shockwaves of their recent troubles as they walked mostly in silence, though close to one another, as if they couldn't escape the attraction that existed in spite of the complications. The nexus of emotion that existed in the caves was compounded by the memories of their previous journey. Elsa still remembered how angry she had been as she chased him, eclipsing any of her current resentment. With Anna's fate in the dark and a faceless villain to defeat, there had been a strange sort of clarity to her quest to destroy him, even as most of it was muddy and lost in the budding influence of Lind in her mind. The emotion had been the only thing in focus, which made the memories potent. The only thing that distracted her from the pain of the past was the realization of the present, as she realized how strange it would have been to know where she stood now.

Marrying the villain who had stolen her sister away.

Proprietor over the betrayal of her most trusted advisor, Regent Stenson.

Master of Lind's IceHeart.

So many changes had happened since her last trip through the cave that she couldn't help but laugh to herself, glancing to Yasha and wondering if he were thinking of the same things, though she was struck by his expression and how it differed from her own. He didn't share her humor. His body was tense. It wasn't the reflection on his recent actions that bothered him, but rather the same memories that flowed through the place, taken in different color and degree. Without speaking, she knew him. She knew his heart. He was also thinking how far he had come since their first meeting, but not as an acknowledgment of change, but rather a path long left behind. In these caves, he had been an animal. He struggled to survive. The place he stood now was not a strangely similar shade of the world he had known before, but something else completely, one that wouldn't just draw an amused smile at the disparity, but an overwhelming sense of disbelief on whole.

For all of the same, unbelievable changes that Elsa considered, Yasha could only look back on the life he once lived and feel content to leave it buried in rock and darkness.

It was a quiet journey further in, captured in the moment the two of them stood in the cavern where their first battle had taken place. The rockslide that had separated Elsa and Anna still lay scattered, while several blackened marks were still visible on the walls, along with some areas where ice had discolored the stone. The scars of their battle seemed immortal, but were especially obvious as they stood before a large flower of bleached rock, where a raging, dying prince had once been crushed by the ice of a vengeful Snow Queen. As they stood side by side, staring at the place, they could visualize their past selves, locked in a moment of terror and fate, with Elsa holding Yasha's life in her hand as it was guided by a mysterious force from afar. She had nearly killed him that day, and the memory had haunted her ever since.

Breathing quietly, she slipped her hand into his, laying her head against his shoulder as they gave the place its reverence, not uttering a single word between them.

After paying quiet respects to their violent past, they moved on until the entered Yasha's grotto. It was decimated by the passage of time and the earthquake that had followed his defeat at her hand. The broken furniture was devoured by loose rocks. The few books he had once cherished were torn and soggy, their words unintelligible. Even the clear pool of water that had been the source of life for him was now a muddy puddle, being fed by constant silt from somewhere within the stone.

Yasha was content to see his old home disappearing.

"Anything you want to take with you?" Elsa asked softly as she stood behind him, watching him crouch over the shattered books. His pale eyes looked over the meager accommodations as he tried to remember just how important everything had been to him once.

As much as he wanted to feel a lingering attachment, he was eager to forget the place had ever existed. "No," he replied, tossing a ravaged book down with little remorse, then rose to his feet and turned to her. "There is nothing here I need here."

Knowing he wouldn't drag out whatever feelings he had, she simply nodded.

Suddenly, his body became tense and his eyes flared, startling her. The IceHeart reacted to a stifling pressure in the air and her eyes reacted as well, her mouth moving to speak, but falling silent to the defensive posture he had taken.

As his attention was locked beyond her, she quickly spun around to a terrifying sight.

At the opposite end of his grotto was a cluster of moving shadows, with trails of red light pulsing through the darkness and many yellow eyes staring at them. The sounds of stone scraping on stone brought out many memories, though they were steeped with fear and Elsa threw her hands up, ready to defend them with the might of her newly minted Heart.

"Xenoliths!" she cried, trying to count just how many but finding their forms merged with the darkness of the cave, making it impossible to know their force. "There's so many."

The looming beasts dominated the grotto, holding steady just behind the wall of shadow that gave them their ominous appearance. Knowing how formidable they were, both Elsa and Yasha knew that even with the Hearts, facing them would be a perilous test of the ancient magic. Yasha had stepped to her side, his eyes burning brightly orange and his hand out as well, though at his movement the golems shifted strangely, not surging forward towards them as their nature demanded, but reacting to their presence in a way that defied every expectation of their prey.

The Xenoliths suddenly began to kneel en masse, bowing their hulking bodies to the startled sovereigns that stood before them. Their submission made Elsa gasp, her glowing eyes searching the congregation for some kind of cause.

"What are they doing?" she whispered.

Yasha was still tense, moving his hand around to address any of the creatures that might surge forward, but soon found that each time he shifted his hand, the golems swayed, letting out an almost musical series of tones from their crystalline bodies. Elsa also picked up on their responses and looked at him, then followed his gaze down to the hand that apparently wooed the monsters.

"Could it be the FireHeart?" he asked.

The mob of Xenoliths patiently waited for something from their master, which made Elsa slowly exhale as the glow faded from her eyes. "Okay, so you now have an army of indestructible rock giants at your disposal," she noted incredulously, then looked to him and marveled at the expression on his face. He obviously was shaken by the way they would suddenly pledge themselves to him, though once more her grasp on his heart made her understand where it was.

A smirk crossed her lips.

"Thinking about making them some Royal Guard uniforms?"

The suggestion broke him from his trance and he looked to her, mirroring her as he slowly lowered his hand. For a moment, he had been overwhelmed by the prospect of commanding such a potent force, but seeing that his beloved queen was once more bringing reality upon him, he realized that his unique understanding of them meant there was only one thing to do with an invincible army of immortal monsters.

He let out a long, appreciative breath.

"On the contrary, I was thinking that they should find the deepest part of the caves, and simply be left alone," he replied, looking back to the Xenoliths as his eyes flared slightly, making the creatures rise and then disappear back into the darkness, their harmonic sounds drifting away until they could barely be heard at all. "I believe that would make them happy, if it makes any sense."

Elsa watched them retreat, then turned back to her betrothed. Her smirk turned into a smile. She didn't know many who would bury such power, taking an otherwise decisive strength and simply letting it remain undisturbed in the ground, but she expected nothing less of her beloved Yasha, something that was championed as she sweetly leaned up and kissed him across his cheek

"I think that's a great idea," she remarked.

"What was that for?" he asked, looked confused as he ran his hand over the place on his cheek still tingling from her lips.

His expression amused her. "Because you're you," she replied softly, "I don't need any other reason to kiss my fiancée, do I?"

The excuse made him exhale slowly, then feel his tense expression break. Once he would have gladly wielded the Xenoliths, setting them upon his enemies and dismissing the carnage as nothing more than necessary. Now, he could let them go, for he had a much more powerful force at his command, even more powerful than the FireHeart that gave him command over the elements. He now had love, for Elsa and for Anna, and for everything else in the kingdom that waited for them. Those things would guide his hand and his heart, making immortal monsters unnecessary in their world.

Leaving the grotto behind, the two of them made their way through the the caves, finally crossing the last memorial paths that led to the land of Fria, now a strange shade of what it had been before. Like a shadow of the kingdom he once knew, Yasha marveled at how the snow and ice strangled the lush forests, with the black soil and green leaves cast as white as Lind's castle had been. During the reign of Nazir, there had never been winter in Fria, yet now it was nothing but winter, a product of Lind's final blow against her fallen lover. Fria had become somewhat of a curiosity, where snow fell even during summer, yet even the most prepared could only linger for a matter of hours, as the air was unnaturally cold and warded off any that would trespass. Yasha had been oddly thankful for that, for his homeland was a sacred place, still ruled by the ancient volcano that lingered in the distance, but was now quiet and completely covered in ice.

Yet the entire journey was something of a crucible for him, taking him back to the world he hated and loved and had watched destroyed.

Elsa was aware of how his carefully controlled composure wavered with every step they took, making her stay near him, especially as they finally exited the frozen forest, coming into sight of the decimated kingdom and the grotesque statue of a defeated monster cast in stone and ice.

The two of them stopped. Yasha's breathing was erratic as he stared at the frozen body of Nazir's monstrous form, howling silently into the air after wiping the land clean of his people's homes. Elsa felt hurried by his anxiety, reaching up and placing her hand across his shoulder, keeping her eyes solely on him. While she had been trying to prepare herself to support him in this moment, she found the way he boiled under the surface still frightened her, forcing her to defy the danger of his temperament, and cool him if he became too hot.

"You don't have to push yourself, Yasha. There's nothing he can do to you now," she reminded him.

His answer was to exhale slowly, then took comfort in her touch and tore his eyes away from the statue, letting them fall on the sparkling necklace she was wearing around her neck. Their entire journey circled around the jewel that rested between her breasts, and he hadn't come this far to be defeated by the fears he could never escape.

"I will be fine," he said after a moment, then lifted his eyes to her, "It is time to see the end of this."

Elsa smiled slightly, then nodded as she turned her attention back to the statue. Taking a deep breath, she took the teardrop-shaped gem of her necklace into her hand, focusing the IceHeart's magic to carry out the last will of its creator, which then created the glowing form of Lind before her, her hands cupped around Elsa's.

The ghostly image slowly opened her eyes, then smiled softly.

Elsa mirrored her expression.

Without a word, Lind turned from her and took a few steps towards the entombed monster, her bare feet barely making a mark in the snow, until she stood before it and took a moment to let her emotions catch up with her. Unlike lashing out at him from afar, knowing he was so close made her hesitate, her hand outreached and almost touching the stone, though as she felt the presence of her successor behind her and was reminded of her fate by the ethereal glow around her hand, she finished the distance between her and stone, letting her fingers finally come into contact.

Cracks of glowing light began to course through the frozen rock and consumed the statue until the monstrous tomb shattered, leaving only a single figure of a man standing in its place.

Nazir's eyes slowly opened to the frozen wasteland of his kingdom, all traces of orange gone from them and once more showing the glimmer that once was Alexei. His robes and gold were destroyed, as was the deformed look of power on his face. There was confusion as he gazed at Lind, so shocked at seeing her again that he had nothing to say.

Yasha's posture tightened. Seeing his hated father caused the orange in his eyes to flare brightly, while his fists were clenched so tightly at his sides, his joints could be heard popping. While he had days to prepare for it, seeing even a ghost of Nazir churned up an intense fury inside, one that was only calmed as Elsa calmly reached out to take his hand, not to sue for peace, but to simply show him that she was there.

Knowing just how powerful his father's influence still remained, it was all she could hope to do.

Displaced from their onlookers, Nazir continued to stare at Lind, taking only a few glances down to his ethereal form, before finally overcoming his silence and speaking to her for the first time in many, many years.

"Lind?"

"It's been a long time, Alexei," she replied, her expression neutral and her posture calm.

His memories were a blur, especially concerning the last few moments of his life. The dearth of the FireHeart's voice felt terrifying, but it was nothing compared to the idea of facing her after so much had happened. Just being this close made his chest burn and he tried to avoid her gaze by digging back into the bitter past, as if that was the only thing they had left between them.

"What is this? Some last chance to settle things? Why are we here?" he stuttered, putting his hand to his head as he tried to focus.

Lind frowned slightly, then stepped closer, shaking her head. "It's okay. There's no reason to be afraid. We're together again. That's all that matters," she replied, as if she could finally take all of the terrible things that happened between them at brush it aside.

In the end, with the both of them set free of their immortal bonds, it was much easier to remember the happiness they had shared. Without the magic and without the Hearts, Lind could only remember how he had loved her.

If they were to discover the next world together, it was the only thing she wanted to take with her.

Nazir's expression wavered. While it wasn't as easy for him to forget all the things he had done, to her and to everyone else, he selfishly wanted to be in love with her again as well, to be the Alexei that he once was. While he firmly believed he didn't deserve it, he threw away everything that had been Nazir and opened himself to her, for he had little left to offer her but the core of what was once his heart. "Lind, I'm sorry. For everything. I know I don't have the right to say that now but…" he stuttered weakly, and

Lind placed her hands across his chest, her eyes commanding him as she wiped away all of the sin between them.

"For once in your life, just shut up and kiss me."

The request made him flinch, though the unorthodox demand signaled that trying to deny her now might have been his greatest sin, and that the only choice he had was to obey her.

Surrendering everything to her and taking her in his uncertain grasp, he relived the moments of their past when all that existed was their love, before the immortality and before the fall, and as he felt her hold him back, he realized just how foolish he had been to try and conquer the world when everything he could ever want had already been his. As he kissed her, he even threw away his fate of being unforgiven, if only because he could give up all the time and magic in the world just to be with her again.

Death was a very potent form of salvation.

"That's sort of weird to watch," Elsa remarked, feeling a bit of a blush on her cheeks as she watched just how powerful the emotions were before her.

Yasha snorted. "Undoubtedly."

The kiss between Lind and Alexei lasted for nearly the eternity they had once lost, but soon they broke apart, smiling as warmly as they had many lifetimes ago, but remaining in each other's embrace, until the presence of their spectators was realized and they looked out to them. Lind appeared like a different person, smiling meekly as she kept her grasp on her lover, but being careful to pay her respects to those that made it happen. She could barely contain her happiness.

"Thank you both for this. You don't know how much it means to me," she said, then looked back to Alexei. "To us."

While Elsa smiled warmly back and accepted her gratitude, a heavy, heated pressure filled the air as Alexei met Yasha's eyes, something that made his enjoyment of the moment fade away. Yasha's obvious hatred for him remained and he had no appreciation for their reunion. There was only the old anger and it made Alexei frown at the warranted glare he received from his son.

"Yasha, I…"

"You should understand, Father, that nothing you could say to me now would change anything between us," Yasha suddenly barked, cutting his overtures short, "So perhaps it is best to say nothing at all."

The animosity made Alexei flinch, though he soon nodded bitterly as he accepted all of Yasha's hate. It was the least he could do. "I guess you're right," he replied, making sure not to marginalize how deserving he was of that response. While he was lucky enough to receive Lind's forgiveness in the twilight of his life, he knew earning the same from his son was impossible, not when he had committed so many crimes against him. It felt wicked to even try. "Take care of yourself, son. And don't let the FireHeart change you. Consider that my last, and maybe only fatherly advice I've ever given you," he offered, watching as his last effort break across his fierce expression, just as he had expected. Only after he had been so wicked and suffered defeat at his son's invincible heart did Alexei realize how much he wanted to love Yasha as a father would.

Secretly, he resolved to do it anyway, and be proud of what his son had become in his stead.

"And get to work on my grandkids, would you? I think you finally might know what to do when a beautiful woman like her takes an interest in you," he added, watching how his break from the evil monster they knew shattered their practiced expressions and made them appear as bashful children. He especially enjoyed the glowing blush that devoured Elsa's face.

"You are an insufferable man, even in death," Yasha replied gruffly, though couldn't hide how his father's sudden and true self threw him off balance.

While Alexei enjoyed his small measure of revenge, the glow around him and Lind began to dim, signaling that their time was running short. Now that she had reclaimed the love that had been taken from her, Lind saw no reason to linger any longer and let the pull on them win against the last of her strength. Standing close to Alexei and feeling the warmth of his arms around her, she gazed upon the two successors of their magic, feeling even happier as they stood together in response. She wasn't above the irony seeing them together. While there was a time she believed they would relive the tragedy that had befallen her and Alexei, she now realized it had been their destiny all along to carve their own path, one that she and Alexei could ultimately follow because of the hearts of their successors.

For that, she was thankful beyond words could manage.

"Goodbye, Elsa, and thank you again," she said as their bodies began to fade, sparkling like ice and fire, but leaving them with their smiling faces and hopes for their future together. "Be sure to cherish each other, and everyone else you love. A frozen heart is a terrible thing, but I don't think you'll have to worry about it."

"Your heart will always be filled with love."

"And beware the other elements, Yasha, should they ever come looking for you," Alexei added, though the remark was cryptic and almost smothered by the way they faded away.

With their last words breaking apart with their ghosts, the two fallen immortals went spiraling into the sky as a shower of sparkles that soon settled among the parting clouds, where they became one with a sky full of stars, together forever once more.

Elsa was watching them with a sense of closure, though the last warning did linger, making her glance over to Yasha. "What do you think he meant by that? Beware the other elements?" she asked quietly.

Yasha stared up into the sky, finding his father's heart just as elusive as it had been his whole life. "I do not know."

"Do you think you'll ever be able to forgive him?" she asked.

"No," he answered shortly, then sighed as he searched the sky for a star that might be his, "But perhaps, I might understand him a little better now."

Elsa nodded, not wanting to push him further. Even if Yasha never learned to forgive his father, he had learned to accept his legacy, finally becoming the prince she had always wished him to be. There was no one else she could imagine spending the rest of her life with and now that there was nothing to stand in the way of that, she suddenly felt rushed into finally marrying him, before anything else could threaten the happiness they had earned. "I think it's time to go home. Anna's probably worried sick," she suggested, though felt sad they had to leave the beautiful, isolated place they stood, where the storms had dispersed and left the beautiful clear sky hanging over Fria. Yasha took a moment to look out over his lost kingdom, imagining that it would once more return to the lush place it had once been, no longer held magically in perpetual winter or summer, but rather returning to its natural state when it would see both. A part of him still longed for Fria and wondered who might return to the mountain, but feeling the pull of his beloved's hand and looking back to her warm eyes, he let Fria fall behind him as he thought of where his home now was; Arendelle.

"I like the idea of finally going home," he said, taking her arm in his as they walked away from the thawing land, with thoughts only of their future burning brightly in their minds.

As the two of them began their long journey home, there was suddenly the sound of thundering hooves ahead of them, with a team of horses pulling a familiar carriage up to a stop before them. Escorting the carriage were several members of the Royal Guard, headed by Thias. Elsa and Yasha exchanges glances before looking to them, wondering who might emerge from the coach, yet as Thias hopped down from his horse, the large man opened the door to the emptiness within.

"Have you finished with your business, Your Majesties?" he asked, gesturing to the waiting coach with a large smile. "Allow us to take you back to the castle." Elsa smiled at the prospect at riding in comfort instead of walking, while Yasha ran his hand through his hair, giving Thias an annoyed glance.

"Johann's idea?" he sighed.

"Yes, Your Majesty, but Princess Anna was also insistent," he replied, with the title making Yasha open his mouth to speak, though he was silenced by a tug on his arm from Elsa. He looked to her, realizing it was pointless to protest, for the position of king awaited him no matter how he resisted it.

Instead of fighting it, he let out a slow breath and let the last of his resistance be defeated, leading his queen over to the carriage and helping her inside. After offering Thias a sharp glance and feeling annoyed at his impish grin, Yasha stepped from the soil of his homeland and settled into the coach next to Elsa, watching as the door closed and sealed this life of royalty around him. Not having control over his pace still bothered him, but when Elsa nestled in close and laid her head against his shoulder, he found himself letting go of his anxiety and embracing the position he had.

"You know you're going to have to get used to this, _Your Majesty," _she teased, playing with his hand as the carriage lurched around them, "A king travels by coach or by horse. I think your walking days are over._"_

He watched her intently for several quiet moments and felt the way her body laid against his own. "Perhaps I could come to enjoy traveling in this manner."

"I'm glad we agree," she said, smiling happily.

Taking the formal road from Fria to Arendelle, the two of them once more found the time to reflect on all that had happened, even as they could now do it in comfort, snugly reclined on silk and ivory. Elsa preoccupied herself with his hand and the feeling of him bumping against her. When they returned to the castle, they would find it hard to be alone like this and once more bound by schedules, but so quickly falling towards the day when they would marry that she found it hard to remain clam. For his part, he continued to watch her, thinking of his father and of Lind, and of the FireHeart and the IceHeart. They lived lives like no other; a king and queen, masters of ancient magic, successors of a broken fate. Sometimes it was hard to keep focus amongst such complexity, yet a single thing kept him looking where needed, floated softly in the posh carriage, where no one else could hear.

"I love you, Elsa."

Taken off guard, she leaned up and met his eyes, finding him once more dominating her with his gaze. While she had almost gotten used to hearing it without flustering, her cheeks once more burned and her heart raced, her eyes searching his as she suddenly coughed out a giddy laugh, then steadied herself and bit her bottom lip.

She still hated how much his gaze affected her.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh," she said after a moment of misjudging his expression, but then fell back into his eyes and tried to decipher his sudden mood. "Where did that come from?"

Yasha slowly reached up, tapping his chest.

"Here."

Elsa let another giddy laugh slip away. It had been a long time since she had enjoyed his romantic side, and while the heat in her cheeks wouldn't subside, she let the warmth of him blanket her as she slipped her arms up around his neck, pulling him close and finally accepting that everything was as it was supposed to be.

"I love you, Yasha."

And then, she kissed him.


	15. Epilogue

**Frozen – IceHeart**

Epilogue

Arendelle celebrated the anniversary of the marriage between Queen Elsa and King Yasha underneath a starry sky in the spring. It was a pleasant evening, with the castle and the town decorated with banners and torchlight, with even those residents that had moved back to Fria making the journey to the fjord, bringing the entirety of the kingdom together in order to celebrate the coronation of the royal family. Compared to the previous years, the kingdom had enjoyed a time of relative calm, with its monarchs becoming so well-known that delegations from far and wide would sometimes arrive just to see the ancient magic for themselves. While the kingdom was packed with visitors foreign and domestic, the settling night found the most prominent figures in the kingdom aside, standing before the castle and where everyone could see them.

Queen Elsa looked out over the crowds, smiling radiantly. It brought a warm feeling to see the festivities in her kingdom, but even more so as she looked to her side and found those she cared for most. Standing in his place at her side was Yasha, crowned only a year ago, yet already showing a gait fitting of an ancient king. While he had shown such resistance in times long past, he had instantly become the king she wanted him to be, strong and resolute, yet never forgetting the people they served. A year of being with him as her husband had gone by quickly, if only because each day began with him next to her, and ended the same way.

Sighing happily, she raised her hand into the air, causing the crowds to hush and his attention to fall on her, which it made her heart run just as it always did. "Are you ready?" she asked softly.

Mirroring her, he raised his hand as well as the glow of fire appeared in his eyes. "After you."

With a glow of her own, Elsa pooled the magic of the IceHeart, flicking her fingers into the air, where a swirl of ancient magic followed, spiraling high into the sky. At the same time, a trail of fire burst from Yasha's hand, dancing with the ice into the heavens, where the powers sparked and collided until they finally reached their destined heights and dashed one last time into the other, where they then exploded into a brilliant display, lighting the darkness and sending a flower of light blooming over the castle. As the fire marked the sky, the cool night was punctuated by fluttering snowflakes drifting down, much to the awe and cheers of the crowds that watched.

The king and queen dazzled the audience for many minutes, throwing magic and light, until it became such a common sight that it was expected to always blanket the castle, even in the depth of night.

Standing closely to her sister, Anna had been watching the display with a wide grin, feeling the sporadic kiss of snow as it fell on her upturned face. "I never thought I'd see fireworks that made snow fall," she said, awed by the display and then hearing a sound that made her look down and smile. At the sights and sounds of fire and ice, the small infant in her arms giggled at the snowflakes that fell near her, her blue eyes looking all around and her small hands trying to grasp at them. Kristoff was also pulled from the show to look at his daughter, finding her laughter contagious as he reached down and started poking at her nose with his finger.

"Neither has little Gerda. Isn't that right? Who's daddy's little girl? Who's daddy's little…" he babbled, utterly in love with her, but then suddenly yelping in pain as he snatched his finger back, a small trail of drool running down to his palm. "She bit me!"

Anna smirked. "That's because you always pretend your finger's a carrot," she replied, then dismissed his pain to play with their daughter, making sure not to get too close to her moving jaws, "But you won't need to bite daddy for much longer, will you Gerdy? Pretty soon you'll have your new cousin to play with. Yes, you will." Being dismissed made Kristoff grouse slightly, though as Sven suddenly leaned over and began sniffing his finger, he glared at the reindeer and was already moving to head off another assault.

"Don't get any ideas," he warned.

As the celestial display was brought to a close and the celebrations began on the ground, Elsa brought her hands down from the sky and rested them on her stomach, where only the slightest of signs revealed the precious treasure inside. While she had only just gotten used to the idea of being married to the one she loved, the idea of joining Anna in motherhood was another frightening adventure on the horizon, though it was one she didn't look to in fear, but in happiness of who she would share it with.

Glancing back to her king, she could only try and control how she was smiling, especially as he gazed back, resolved to sharing their lives together more resolutely than any task before.

While feeling almost like a stranger to the intimacy of the royal family, Johann had been standing at their side, both to pursue his duties as the baron of the Royal Guard, but also as someone was graciously allowed to linger so close. Next to him was a young lady with short, dark hair and they exchanged a quiet glance before she looked towards Yasha with her pale blue eyes.

"So, Uncle, have you finally picked a name for the new prince?" she asked politely, looking to where Elsa's hands were resting carefully across her stomach.

Yasha found it as difficult to look away from Elsa as he always had, but slowly shifted his attention to this recently unearthed addition to his family, a warm smile touching his lips. The question wasn't without gravity, for he had never imagined himself trying to think of the name of his child, when fate had once demanded the end of his bloodline. As one of the strange abilities of the FireHeart was a sort of premonition, he knew the child was a boy, just adding to the irony of the legacy he took from Alexei. While he had no idea how to be a father himself, he knew he could never be the monster that his father was, making him swear to love his son as strongly as he loved his wife, as if such a thing could be possible.

"We will name him Kai," he answered, looking back to Elsa and also fighting to control his expression, as he had never known such happiness before, and was slightly afraid of it.

Upon hearing the much-awaited name, they gave the next generation of Arendelle their full attention, with Anna bouncing Gerda softly as she digested the name. "Kai and Gerda, huh?" she mused, thinking the names suited them well, then looked back and began to pamper her daughter happily, "I think the castle staff is going to have their hands full in a few months."

"Do you think he'll get the magic too?" Kristoff asked, vocalizing a much debated subject as all eyes fell on Elsa.

"Oh, maybe he'll shoot fire from one hand and ice from the other! He'll make hot fudge and ice cream at the same time," Olaf cheered. "What a guy."

While his usual banter was met with laughter and smiles, his fiery partner Sid sighed heavily as she floated next to him, giving him a fierce stare. "Do you even listen to yourself when you talk?"

Turning to her, he locked his twigs together and sighed happily at being given the chance to talk to her. "Sometimes I can't hear anything but the sound of my heart when you're nearby, sparky," he replied, though it drew a burning response as the sprite floated down and landed on the tip of his nose, her arms crossed over her chest tightly.

"Let's talk again about how much I hate that name," she growled.

Addressing the lingering question, Elsa sighed, though didn't lose her smile. It was a subject that dominated the royal bedchambers, but ultimately she just ran her hands over her stomach, trying to imagine just what kind of life her child would have. "I don't know about the magic, but I know he'll always be loved by his family, and that he'll never have to be alone," she replied, moving her attention of from her child and to those around her, finally resting on the king that stood by her side, as she thought of the next chapter in her life, one she would face with those she loved most and those who would take the kingdom into the future they had all worked so hard to conceive.


End file.
